


Falling (Through Time and Space) For You

by AmeliaFriend, ElphabaInTheTARDIS



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 35,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9289460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaFriend/pseuds/AmeliaFriend, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElphabaInTheTARDIS/pseuds/ElphabaInTheTARDIS
Summary: A sequel to "Well Well Wells".Everyone is dead. And it's all HG's fault.When Lenore stumbles across his time machine in the attic, her actions change more lives than she could ever have known.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Well Well Wells](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9174145) by [felofHe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/felofHe/pseuds/felofHe). 



 

Everyone was dead.

Lenore was also dead.

But she’s a ghost and still haunting the land of the living, and therefore not  _ as _ dead as the rest of the Dinner Party guests.

 

The problem lies in the fact that she’s dead  _ here _ , and they’re all dead  _ there _ .

And she knows neither how to get there, nor how to get them here.

 

She doesn’t even have their bodies for company - as morbid as that may be.

The police had come looking for their colleagues not even six hours after the last murder occurred.

She stays out of their way - ghost or not, she killed someone - and she’s sure they’d find a way to blame the rest of the evening's happenings on her as well.

It’s easier that they never know she exists.

 

It’s a massive scandal.

All those famous authors - dead - and the police officers - dead - and the beautiful Annabel Lee - dead.

(Everyone knew the beautiful Annabel Lee. Everyone loved the beautiful Annabel Lee. It was impossible not to.)

It fills the newspapers for weeks - clues and theories and plots and intrigues.

But there’s no closure to be found.

 

And then the next scandal comes along, and everyone slowly forgets about the massacre at the Poe household.

 

Lenore doesn’t forget.

Lenore can’t forget.

* * *

 

Sometimes Lenore blames herself. She’d let herself be fooled by that  _ act _ , by the bumbling little professor, and then he killed everyone.

(She knows that he’d killed like three people before they even spoke to each other - but she still blames herself.)

(There’s no one else left to blame.)

 

She doesn’t do much anymore. She kind of just … exists.

She tried leaving the house once. She made it all the way to the edge of the property before she was snapped right back to the dining room.

She doesn’t try to leave again.

 

So she just sits there - hours into days into weeks.

(She doesn’t think it’s reached months yet - she hasn’t really been paying attention to the passage of time - but it can’t be far off)

 

She tries reading.

(She stops because everything reminds her of  _ him _ and everyone that died.)

She tries to focus on fashion.

(It reminds her too much of Annabel.)

She tries cooking.

(But with no one to eat, the food began to rot, and that was so much worse.)

 

So she does nothing.

She just sits and waits for the day she can pass along to the other side and not be alone anymore.

* * *

 

Sometimes she wakes up and she’s forgotten.

The sun streams in through the window, there are birds being only slightly annoying, and Edgar isn’t being noticeably weird for a change.

She goes down to the kitchen and she starts cooking - because she likes cooking and she’s good at cooking, and Edgar literally would never eat unless she would put the food in front of him.

 

Sometimes it takes her minutes to remember.

Sometimes a little longer.

 

Once, she forgot for three whole hours.

She left the food outside his study, and she spent a wonderful morning alternating between reading in the library, and sorting out her wardrobe (just because she can’t wear anything else, doesn’t mean she can’t look at all the pretty dresses and pretend).

She remembers when she walks past the study, and the soup is still on the floor - untouched and cold.

 

She pushes the door open slightly, and coughs when confronted with the thick layer of dust covering everything.

Because Edgar is dead. 

Because everyone is dead and they’re not coming back, and no one is coming back.

And it hadn’t sunk in before - not really - but in that moment it does.

 

She disappears to her bedroom.

She doesn’t leave it for five days.

One morning she wakes up, and she’s forgotten.

The cycle begins again.

* * *

 

No one comes to the house anymore either.

(To be fair - no one ever came to the house in the first place, except Annabel.)

(But between Annabel’s visits and Edgar  _ literally never leaving the house, like ever _ \- Lenore was never short for company, never short for something to amuse herself with.)

 

She’s never been entirely alone before.

Ever.

She misses people.

(Not even just specific people - she misses ‘people’ in general these days.)

 

She’s … lonely.

She doesn’t like being lonely.

* * *

 

It’s an accident when she finds the time machine.

(His time machine. Even if she doesn’t like to think of who ‘his’ is.)

She’d ended up in the attic whilst wandering aimlessly - an area of the house she usually avoided these days.

(It’s a shame - the attic had been her jam before the dinner party. Now all it did was remind her of him and who he was and who he wasn’t and how she’s alone. And she’s sad enough as it is without piling the extra sad on top.)

 

But here she was. In the attic.

(She just can’t help herself with the sad, can she.)

 

It’s not hidden or anything. It’s just … there.

It’s not very beautiful - it’s all dented sheet metal and scratched rivets and broken screws and random pieces of wiring in places that even  _ she _ is sure there aren’t meant to be wires.

But it’s intriguing - in it’s own very (very, very) ugly way.

 

Lenore isn’t stupid - she may pretend to be vapid, when and if it should suit her - but she is definitely not stupid.

 

She knows time travel isn’t something to be trifled with, something to mess around with - it’s dangerous and it’s deadly and the most innocent of actions can have unforeseen consequences, and she should absolutely not have anything to do with it, whatsoever.

 

But she could save them.

But she could save  _ everyone _ .

 

She could kill him, before he had a chance to hurt anyone - before he had a chance to hurt Annabel or even Edgar, or anyone else he invited to that godforsaken dinner party she wished had never happened.

This was her chance to make it right.

She has got to take it.

 

It’s more spacious inside than she would have thought - there are two chairs (in dire need of repair. Or of being ripped out and replaced with something less … dreary) near a control panel that has almost certainly seen better days, and when she stands up there is almost a whole inch of space between her head and the bare metal of the roof.

 

(For being so obsessed with this machine - he really didn’t keep it looking it’s best.)

(She doesn’t think about the fact that maybe it’s a warning - that time travel destroys everything it touches - to turn away now while she still has a chance, while she still has a half-life.)

(But a half-life is almost worse than no life, and she soldiers on regardless.)

 

It’s easier to use than she would have thought too.

A button here, a switch there, a lever turned this means forward, flip it and you go backwards.

There’s a shudder and a smell of smoke and she’s moving before she’s really come to terms with what it is she’s doing.

(No turning back now.)

(Even if she wanted to.)

(She doesn’t)

 

Then everything gets … intense.

 

The lights seem to magnify a hundred fold, flashing and coloured and obnoxious; and there’s a noise, a buzzing of electricity throughout the capsule, except louder than anything she’s heard before, and it’s almost painful on her ears, on her eyes, and she feels herself being torn from her own skin, of being corporeal and non-corporeal and something in between all at the same time.

And she’s everything and she’s nothing, and her eyes are shut against the wind that’s somehow buffeting her face, but if she were to open them she would see all that is, all that was, all that would be and could be and will be, and she would surely go insane from the knowledge.

(It’s a good thing her eyes are closed.)

 

And then - as soon as it all began - it’s over.

The winds still, the lights dim, the sounds quiet, and Lenore feels herself settle within her skin once more.

It’s quite a disconcerting feeling, if she’s being completely honest.

 

She can’t get out of the machine fast enough - leaving through the wall, so she doesn’t have to worry about grace or decorum or doors.

(That last one is a definite bonus of ghost-living.)

 

The first thing she realises quickly, is that she’s still in the attic - which is a bonus she hadn’t been counting on when the machine started up.

(Honestly - still being in America is a bonus she hadn’t been counting on when the machine started up.)

 

The second thing she realises quickly, is that she’s no longer alone in the attic.

 

Every hair on her body tenses up, as she recognises the goggles, and the outfit, and the expression, and the face and it’s  _ him _ , and she acts without thinking - without consideration to anything but her anger and her loneliness and her hate, and it’s  _ all his fault _ .

 

HG Wells doesn’t try to defend himself when she attacks.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Remember, I will still be here  
> As long as you hold me, in your memory"  
> Josh Groban, Remember Me

HG has been spending a lot of time in the attic since Lenore … moved on. Being in the attic made him feel closer to her somehow. It made the pain seem both less intense and more intense at the same time.

(He really didn’t want to analyze what that meant.)

She’d completed her unfinished business - Guy and Eddie and getting over her own death and everything - and one day she just … vanished.

 

Well, not just vanished. It wasn’t that she’d been there one moment and then gone the next. It started subtly. At first she wasn’t able to hold onto objects for as long. Staying corporeal became a challenge. She hadn’t said anything at first, but after the 5th dropped glass, HG knew something was wrong.

(She’d sheepishly admitted to him that it had been happening for a while, and that she didn’t want him to worry about it because she was “totes fine.”)

(She was lying, of course. She knew she wasn’t fine.)

He’d rushed into his research to try to figure out what was going on, trying to see if there was any way he could save her. But seeing as research on ghosts and their abilities to interact with this world was...limited...he found that he was operating on pure speculation.

Unfortunately, speculation was not enough to keep her. And eventually she realized that she was going to slip from this world and into the next. She’d admitted it before he had. She’d made some sort of joke about how it was “totally lame” since her afterlife had “finally gotten interesting.” She’d laughed hollowly at that, and that’s when HG realized that this would be the end.

She’d told him not to worry about her, and that he deserved to be happy.

And she told him to haunt Edgar for her, since she couldn’t bother him anymore.

It was strange - HG was glad for her - to be able to move on, to be with Guy again...but he missed her, mourned her.

They hadn’t really known each other long enough to be ‘together’, but there was definitely _something_ there. Something, that if they’d had more time, he was sure they could have explored...would have explored. He’d felt the hope and promise of more.

 

And then she was gone. And with her, any hope that those feelings would ever be explored.

 

Annabel and Edgar took it harder than he had. After all, Annabel had known Lenore since they were children. They’d grown up together, telling stories, sharing secrets, planning their future weddings, doing all of the things best friends did. HG hadn’t known Annabel long either, but he knew that she was, for a long time, one of the only good things left in Lenore’s life after she’d died and been brought back. The two of them were inseparable, even in death.

When HG had told Annabel and Edgar that Lenore had passed on, Annabel didn’t leave her room for a week. He and Edgar had taken turns trying to coax her to come out. She only came out a week later with a tear stained face, and she’d hugged HG and told him she was sorry.

HG felt like he was the one who should really be apologizing. After all, he hadn’t been able to figure out a way to stop it all from happening in the first place.

Edgar had been oddly silent and still when HG had told him what had happened. It was as if the man didn’t want to believe that yet another one of his friends had left him in the most horrible and tragic way possible. He’d muttered something about needing to go check on Annabel after she had fled the room in tears.

After that, HG let them be. He let them have their own time to grieve. Lenore had been an important person in all of their lives, but especially for Edgar and Annabel. For a long time, all they had was each other.

 

It’s sort of by an unspoken agreement that HG stays. His inventions continue to take up their...her...attic. He’s been trying to make his machine work again. It hasn’t worked since the day it brought him back. Instead it sits in the corner and taunts him. The machine that brought him back, only to have him watch the one person he’d come back for slip away from him forever. He curses the thing, feeling that perhaps it might be cursed.

(Maybe this whole house is cursed, he sometimes thinks, but then shakes those thoughts from his head. This house had brought him Lenore and with that, even if it was only for a short time, happiness.)

 

Life goes on that way for a few months...HG tinkering or working on things in the attic. He, Annabel and Edgar meeting each night for dinner, now a much more reserved affair with their table one person short. They make small talk, but conversation doesn’t flow like it once did.

He asks Edgar if he should leave and find a new place to work on his inventions. Edgar tells him that he should stay. After all, they’re all bonded together by what had happened.

Annabel tells him later that she feels that they’ve become a family of sorts. The thought makes HG smile for the first time in a long time.

 

He doesn’t stop working on his time machine. He knows that time travel isn’t something to be messed with, but his inquisitive mind can’t help but wonder if there’s a way he could possibly save her. Save her, save all of them, he isn’t picky. He just knows that a world without Lenore in it is a bleak world indeed.

But the machine still doesn’t work, no matter how many times he fixes it.

And then without warning while he’s across the room, he hears the noise of the machine start. Confused he looks at his machine and notices that it’s still sitting in the corner, dark and collecting dust. It’s the sounds of his machine but it’s not _his_ machine.

 

Then the machine appears in the middle of the attic.

 

In the middle of _her_ attic.

 

And then she runs out of the machine. _Lenore_ runs out of the machine. His Lenore.

He stares in shock for a second. Certainly he must be dreaming. This is a dream. He’s going to wake up any second and this will all be something his mind created in its attempt to make him move on...to move past her. He can’t believe that what’s happening in front of him could possibly be _real._

 

And without warning, she attacks him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hope to update as regularly as possible as to not keep anyone hanging for too long. Thank you to all of you who are taking a chance on us and this story!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some answers and even more questions for Lenore, and everyone else.

Lenore had never felt more angry than she had in that moment. She launched herself at the man out of pure rage, not caring what else happened. 

 

It was  _ his _ fault her friends were dead. He caused this. He needed to pay. Again. Or at least be stopped before he could do any more damage. Before he can kill them. She’s not sure if she’s early enough though. Maybe they’re already dead. Maybe she’s too late. Again.

 

She’s so upset and angry that she doesn’t notice that he’s not entirely corporeal either.

 

And then in her anger she forgets to be corporeal and she falls through the floor.

(It’s an odd feeling. She hasn’t done that in years. If she wasn’t so angry she’d be embarrassed.)

 

And then she finds herself in the study with Edgar and Annabel who jump up when she lands on the floor.

 

She just stops for a second and...stares.

(This is a dream. This has to be a dream. They’re dead. They’re dead.  _ They’re dead. _ )

(They’re dead and he killed them.)

It becomes her mantra, repeating over and over in her head. They’re dead. He killed them. They’re  _ dead. _

 

It’s Annabel who reaches out first, hesitantly, as if she can’t believe she’s there. Edgar stands behind her, a shocked but pained look on his face, as if it’s too painful to look at her.

And then Annabel’s hand hesitantly touches hers and they both flinch backwards, both unbelieving that the other is real.

 

“Lenore?”

 

Annabel’s hesitant but hopeful tone almost breaks her right then and there. She was never supposed to hear that voice again. She never allowed herself to hope that she would.

 

It’s of course at this moment that HG bursts into the room, having saved himself from falling through the floor with her.

And Lenore feels all that rage and aggression and  _ they’re dead and he killed them _ come rushing back with a vengeance and she lunges for him again with a broken scream escaping her.

 

“You  _ killed them _ . It’s  _ your fault. _ ” 

 

She doesn’t see the shock on their faces as she says it. Instead she hurls herself at the author once more, attempting to tackle him to the ground. She’s not sure exactly how to make him pay just yet, but right now beating him with her fists seems like a nice start.

 

She falls right through HG and onto the floor. 

She turns around and looks back in confusion.  _ How… _

 

She sees the hurt look on HG’s face. Not hurt and dying like she’d seen him before in the attic when he’d “died”...no. This time it was a genuine look of hurt. She didn’t think that face...that  _ man _ was capable of such an emotion.

 

She pulls herself up and tries, slowly, to touch HG. HG lets her and her solid ghost hand meets his skin. It’s cold. Cold like hers. Cold like…

 

“No…” she breathes. This isn’t happening. No no no no. If he’s...then who….

 

“Lenore…” she hears Annabel say again, her tone sad. She reaches out to Annabel now and touches more cold flesh. Cold like her. Cold like a ghost.

(They’re dead and he killed them.)

 

She takes a step back. Then another. And then she turns and flees the room, running through a house that is both familiar and not familiar at the same time. She doesn’t understand what’s happening, why they’re not  _ dead  _ and not wanting to process that Annabel is dead. Maybe Edgar too. And maybe... _ he’s  _  dead, too. 

 

Maybe they’re all dead and this is her hell. To watch those she cares about trust the man who did it.

 

She flees to the attic. Her space, her jam. It’s covered in  _ his  _ things. His inventions. She grabs one and throws it across the room, feeling satisfied when she hears it shatter. She turns to the time machine and runs back inside. She flips levers, switches, presses buttons. Nothing happens. She tries again, and again, and again. The machine doesn’t flare back to life like it did when it brought her here. It just...sits. 

 

She exits the machine and sinks to the floor next to it. 

(She totally doesn’t cry.)

===============================================================

It’s Annabel who finds her - it’s Annabel who’s always found her, ever since they were children hiding from parents and responsibilities and life and growing up.

 

(Why did they ever grow up? They should have stayed children and happy forever.)

 

It’s Annabel who’s made her way up to the attic - up to the one place Lenore knows she hates more than any other on the whole planet - the place she always has, always will.

It’s small and it’s dark and it’s creepy and there are  _ spiders _ .

 

(“Do you hear me Lenore,  _ spiders _ . I won’t go up there. You can’t make me.”)

 

And Lenore totally isn’t crying and she totally curled into a ball just outside what Annabel assumes is the time machine that brought her here.

 

(She’d be sitting normally but there’s less space in this version of the attic.)

(There are more things. His things.)

(She doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like him contaminating all the places she considers ‘hers’.)

 

Annabel’s known Lenore for a long time - long enough that she barely has memories from the time Before-Lenore.

Asking questions and demanding answers isn’t going to help anyone here, so she just sits down next to her - silently and properly.

 

(And if she’s sat on one of HG’s machines … well, it’s one of his sturdier machines and if he cleaned up occasionally, maybe there’d be somewhere else to sit.)

 

They sit together in silence for a long time.

 

Lenore’s voice is soft, almost unheard, when she finally speaks.

“It was his fault, he killed everyone. Well - Anne killed the constables, and Charlotte killed Dostoyevsky, and I killed him. But he orchestrated the whole thing - he killed everyone else. I tried to fix it. I tried to save you. I jumped in his...that thing.” She gestured at the now useless pile of metal that used to be a time machine, “And I tried to go back and stop it. And instead I’m here. And you all trust him and say he’s not evil when he was and...” She paused and took in a quiet yet sharp breath before continuing. “He killed you, Annababe. I saw your body. I confronted him about it. He laughed. He  _ laughed _ . You were dead and he laughed.”

 

Annabel’s hand flits quickly to her neck - reassuringly and almost unconsciously - and Lenore doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or not that Annabel seemed to die the same way in this world.

“HG didn’t kill me,” Annabel smiles wryly, “trust me, I was there. And he certainly didn’t kill anyone else. He’s a good person, Lenore.”

 

“I thought that too, but he’s  _ not _ . You can’t tell him any of this. You can’t trust him,” And Lenore was almost begging - her eyes were wide in desperation, and Annabel could tell that she truly believed these terrible things about HG.

 

And Annabel promises - not because she believes that HG could ever be capable of such terrible things (she’s lived with him for months. His worst habit is abandoning books in the strangest places across the house.)

 

Annabel promises because Lenore is here, and she’s real and she’s in front of her, and the hole where her best friend had been missing suddenly feels a lot less gaping.

And Lenore might be different, she might be strange, (she might be scarily simultaneously aggressive towards and terrified of HG), but she’s still Lenore, she’s still the girl Annabel grew up with, still the best friend Annabel lost.

And Annabel doesn’t want to lose her again.

 

They sit together in silence for a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're just like everyone  
> When the shit falls  
> All you wanna do is run away  
> And hide all by yourself  
> When there's far from, there's nothing else
> 
> When your mind's made up  
> When your mind's made up  
> There's no point trying to change it"  
> -When Your Mind's Made Up, Once

Lenore has some  _ serious  _ trust issues. Anyone who spent more than thirty seconds with this new, not-necessarily-improved Lenore would be able to see that.

(Edgar was under the impression that this Lenore had some serious  _ everything  _ issues - but really Edgar, look who’s talking. You’re hardly a beacon of perfection yourself.)

 

But one day turned to two, which turned to three, and while Lenore certainly wasn’t even trying to be pleasant to HG, at least she hadn’t tried to attack him again.

Small victories and all.

 

HG had realized quickly that this Lenore wasn’t the same as “their Lenore.” 

He’d pointed this out to Annabel one night after Lenore had fled from the dinner table following his laugh at something she’d said. 

Annabel had given him a look as if she’d known that all along. 

 

The broken time machine, and the broken Lenore, and everything that was different and the same, made sense in his brain soon after that.

He cornered Annabel in the library - when he was sure Edgar and Lenore were nowhere nearby, and couldn’t overhear, and he spilled his theory.

Annabel smiled sadly, she patted his hand, and she went on with her day.

(That .. really didn’t confirm much of anything.)

 

It wasn’t that Lenore didn’t trust Annabel or Edgar when they said that they trusted him. She trusted the two of them with her life...afterlife, whatever...but she didn’t trust  _ him. _

At all.

He’d laugh at something in his awkward, weird way he did when he realized something was a joke two seconds after the rest of the table did, and her mind would flash back to a time when she’d made a joke and he’d laughed at it back in an attic that felt so far away.

_ God, _ he even laughed the same as him.

How could they  _ laugh _ the same?

 

========================

There are days where HG forgets that this Lenore is different than the one he met at that ill fated party. She'll say something that reminds him of her and he'll laugh like he did before when he realizes she's joking or trying to break the tension in the room. 

 

And then she freezes, as always, and he remembers that this isn't his Lenore. 

This Lenore is more...hardened. He's not entirely sure what happened to make her that way but he wishes he could take it away. 

She won't be near him. Not alone at least. There always has to be at least one other person there. He notices her panic when Annabel or Edgar leaves the room and leaves just the two of them in the room. 

She always flees. Always. 

He wishes she wouldn't.

He has no idea what he could have done to cause her to react to him like this.

 

He’s working in the attic one day, still working on his machine and trying to figure out why the second one was able to appear while his still remained silent.

To say it was a frustrating process would be an understatement.

He pulls a new book out of the small library of scientific research he’s begun to accumulate. He becomes so engrossed in his research that he doesn’t notice Lenore enter the room, or notice her staring at him. When he looks up from his book he almost jumps when he sees her, startled.

“Oh um...Lenore…” he stuttered over the words, knowing he was most certainly making a fool of himself. He was always making a fool of himself whenever it came to her. Something about her made his brain short-circuit and caused him to babble like an imbecile. “I didn’t notice that you’d come in...I apologize if you’ve felt...well that is to say…”

 

“Why doesn’t it work?” 

 

HG stopped his babbling mid-sentence and paused for a moment. It’s not that he didn’t know, but...he didn’t know. Not really, at least. He had theories upon theories of course, as any man of science should. But he had no  _ proof. _

“I...ah….well you see I do have a theory. It seems that when I originally used the machine to come back, it took up far more energy than I initially anticipated since I was travelling to transcend the bounds of death and...well my dear Lenore that means that I can hopefully...well in the future that is...” he paused, noticing that Lenore’s eyes had widened at his statement.

He watched as Lenore flinched at the statement. Seeing her flinch almost hurt more than her not trusting him.

He realized the entire situation felt too familiar...the explaining of the science to her...but a different her than the last time. He still wasn’t entirely sure how that worked, or  _ if  _ it worked. She was Lenore...or at least  _ a  _ Lenore. Possibly still his dear Lenore…

 

Oh. Oh dear. He’d said that out loud, hadn’t he?

Perhaps he would need to find a different thing to call her.

Or perhaps she really wasn’t  _ his  _ dear Lenore anymore.   
(Maybe she never really was. She had moved on before they had a chance to explore anything happening between them.)

 

Lenore fled the room before he had a chance to analyze it any further.

 

========================

She ended up in the attic because that’s where she always ends up eventually.

This universe, her actual universe, before and after  _ he _ ruined the attic for her - she still always ends up there eventually.

 

_ He’s _ in there. It’s to be expected - Annabel had told her that he had taken refuge in the attic after the other-her … moved on. Or died again. Or however you refer to what happened to the original Lenore in this dimension.

(It’s confusing that there was a different version of her. One that accepted her death and her after-life and moved on. This version of Annabel and Edgar are so very close to her own and they do love her dearly (in their own .. special way), but they also miss their  _ real  _ Lenore, and she knows it hurts them - just a little - to see her walk around, so close and yet so far from what they are missing.)

 

She knows this version of  _ him _ was close to the original version of herself - it would take an idiot to miss it - even as she has been keeping her distance from him as much as possible.

He reminds her too much of her own version; the one she knew in this very attic, before he ‘died’ and she realised what a truly awful monster he was.

 

She’s been tricked by him before. She won’t be tricked again.

(She won’t let him hurt anyone else again.)

 

The reason she doesn’t just turn around and leave is very simple. Annabel had asked her not to.

Annabel was still convinced of his ‘goodness’, and that in this universe he was different, that it wasn’t an act.

Annabel had asked her to be nice.

Lenore didn’t believe her in the slightest but as the saying goes - keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

She’s a good actress. She can pretend to Not-Hate him for long enough to work out if he’s an immediate threat to Annabel or herself (and Edgar of course. He’s actually in more danger - still being alive and all.)

(Sometimes Lenore forgets that Edgar’s still alive. Her version of Edgar died, and this version acts more dead than any of the ghosts living in his house.)

 

He’s seen her now, and even if she wanted to slip anyway unnoticed, she couldn’t anymore - but that babbling is actually kind of annoying, so she speaks.

And it’s the first time she’s spoken to him - directly - since she attacked him, and she can tell he wasn’t expecting it, and she’s only half paying attention to his explanation as to why his time machine doesn’t work.

And she can’t quite tell what most of his machines are - she recognizes the time machine (it’s hard not to, it’s identical to the one she arrived in, and it’s enormous), and what she thinks is a cahmera and tordongulator, but they look slightly less complex than they did in her universe.

Which hopefully means they’re not a bomb in this universe. She’s reasonably sure he won’t try any explosions - if the house is destroyed, he’s also destroyed.

A megalomaniac like him would never purposefully destroy himself.

 

The rest of the machines are a mystery to her - a combination of wires and metal and electricity, and while there’s a certain beauty to the machines that wasn’t present in the versions she knew back in her world - she wouldn’t trust them as far as she could throw them.

She still doesn’t trust him either.

 

The phrase filters through into her head, and sits there for a moment or so before she understands what’s been said.

 

“My dear Lenore.”

 

She flinches without realizing, as it spins round her head, faster and louder and faster and louder, and it blocks everything else out, and she’s a ghost - she doesn’t need to eat, but all of a sudden she needs to throw up, and  _ how could he use that phrase _ .

And she has to leave - forget what she said to Annabel, forget pretending to Not-Hate him, forget trying to work out how much of a danger he was - she has to leave, this was a mistake, a terrible idea, and she hates him, and she can’t be here.

 

She’s not  _ his dear Lenore _ , she’s not his anything, and her heart is in her throat, and it’s only her promise to Annabel that stops her from trying to rip his out.

(Anything for Annabel.)

 

And she can’t be here, so she leaves.

As fast as she can, as far as she can.

She can’t be here, can’t be near him.

 

She doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again for your support of this fic! We really do appreciate everyone's support and comments. We'll have the next chapter soon! :)


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Over, I'm so over you  
> The way that you look in a three-piece suit  
> Over, I'm so over you  
> The way that you held me when nobody else would
> 
> Maybe if I tell myself enough  
> Maybe if I do  
> I'll get over you"  
> Ingrid Michaelson, Over You

**** Days pass and slip together, and Lenore has no way of knowing if it’s a Tuesday or the 3rd or June or any of the above.

(It’s definitely not June though. It’s far too cold for that.)

 

One morning she comes down, and Annabel is already there. (Annabel is always already there - she’s like perfect at everything, including getting out of bed at a reasonable hour.)

Annabel starts talking the second she sees her best friend. (She talks a lot. Sometimes Lenore replies with similar enthusiasm - they way she would have done  _ before _ . Sometimes Lenore makes appropriate replies and is more restrained. Sometimes Lenore just lets the words wash over her and doesn’t reply at all.) (Annabel takes it in her stride.)

 

It’s just a passing remark from the other girl - “I can’t believe it’s been a month already” - and Lenore thinks about it, and she can’t believe it’s been a month either. It seems to be both forever and mere hours since she landed in the wrong version of the attic.

(She hasn’t made any attempt to return to the ‘right’ version since that very first day though. It hadn’t been the ‘right’ version for a very long time.)

 

Life has slowly returned to normal.

(Well - a new-old version of normal, that’s familiar and unusual to all of them.)

 

Lenore is thankful for the familiarity sometimes. She falls into a usual pattern with Edgar and Annabel, making food for Edgar and spending time in the study with Annabel.

(Edgar would be useless without either of them, she’s decided. In every universe it seems, the man just...forgets to eat. How does one forget to eat?)

 

(“Seriously, Edgar. It’s food. Like, your body gets hungry and you feed it? It’s literally that simple?”

“Go away, Lenore.”

“I’ve still got your dinner.”

“Leave the food and then go away Lenore. I’m working.”

“Why do I put up with you?”)

(The last line may be unspoken, but she means it just as much.)

 

She hasn’t spoken to  _ him _ alone since that day in the attic.

It’s still too raw. Too real.

 

(When Annabel had asked how it went, Lenore tried to lie.)

(Annabel immediately knew it hadn’t worked.)

(Lying to Annabel was never a sensible idea.)

(Her goodness meant she could sniff a lie from a hundred paces.)

(It was actually terrifying.)

 

Her skin just...feels weird whenever he’s in the room. She’s not sure how to describe it. It’s like every nerve ending in her being is set on fire.

(It’s weird and she doesn’t like it. She’s a ghost. She shouldn’t be able to feel any of this.)

(Whatever  _ this _ is.)

 

In another world, another time, she would have found his awkwardness endearing. She finds herself thinking that it’s almost adorable sometimes and her brain goes along with it until she remembers that she’s supposed to hate him.

(It’s an act. He had to be putting up an act. There’s no way he’s this...nice.)

(She waits for something to happen. Anything.)

 

(It doesn’t. And that’s almost worse.)

 

It’s not that Lenore doesn’t trust him.

(Actually yes - it’s entirely that Lenore doesn’t trust him. But there’s more to it than that.)

 

Annabel has long since stopped pushing the issue - resigned to just giving Lenore  _ looks _ that she was more than willing to ignore - and Edgar never realised there was an issue to push in the first place, and he just watches her from across the room with those big fake puppy eyes when he thinks she can’t see. (She sees. She sees everything, and she wishes he would stop.)

(She still hates him.)

 

She hates how Annabel trusts him. How Edgar trusts him. How they treat him like family without even entertaining the idea that he’s not what he appears.

She hates how she’s watching it happen all over again and she’s like Cassandra from that book of Greek Mythology she read while ignoring Edgar, speaking only the truth yet cursed to never be believed.

 

The images of their bodies - limp and lifeless on the floor, his handiwork - are forever burned into her brain.

Annabel never had to live without Edgar, but she remembers all too well Edgar’s face for the short time he had to live without Annabel - and she never wants to see that again.

And it’s all his fault.

They had died - both of them, and so many other - at his hands.

And it’s all his fault.

They’re dead and he  _ killed them _ .

 

(They  _ were  _ dead. She corrects herself. They’re still alive - to an extent - here. It’s useless to bury them before they die. She can still protect them here.)

 

They  _ were _ dead and he was the one who killed them.

She refuses to let it happen again.

 

* * *

 

HG treads carefully around Lenore after their interaction in the attic. He figured out Annabel was behind it after seeing a sad look Annabel gave Lenore after she’d fled the room on one of her many occasions of doing everything she could to get away from him. When he’d asked her about it after, Annabel merely shook her head and told him that “she’ll come around in her own time.”

 

(HG knew she meant well, but he wasn’t sure her meddling was helping more than it was hurting.)

 

He enjoys the tentative friendship he’s formed with Annabel and Edgar. Three people bonded by the events of that horrible dinner party and then subsequently losing their dear Lenore...and gaining a new, albeit different, Lenore. It was all very confusing. He found himself still drawn to this Lenore...the energy surrounding her had not changed, even if she had.

But without any sort of avenue to really explore it, he had resigned himself to continuing to wonder what had happened to make her fear him to this extent.

(Annabel’s sad looks when he would ask her if she knew anything did not help matters.)

 

(He also knew better than to press her for answers. It always ends with a disapproving look and HG feeling like he’d somehow disappointed her. It’s not a fun feeling.)

 

HG knows that she doesn’t trust him. She’d made that much obvious in the past few months of her being here. 

He still doesn’t know why, but he’s stopped asking Annabel for answers. She just gives him a sad look whenever he does, and if there’s anything anyone in this house knows to be true, it’s that you don’t make Annabel Lee sad.

(Especially since every time she even looks the slightest hint of sad Edgar manages to overreact and think that she’s unhappy with him and does some sort of extravagant gesture to ensure that she’s happy.)

(HG had heard Lenore muttering something about never being able to clean up after the amount of ravens he’d brought in the last time. HG offered to help her clean up but was met with a cold stare, and then her fleeing from him. Again.)

 

He almost wishes he didn’t still feel the connection between them.

Almost.

But he then, of course, realizes that life without Lenore would be even more unbearable. He’d already experienced that once. He didn’t want to have to experience it again.

So instead he tries his best to ignore it and the small flashes of pain he feels in his heart every time she ignores him or runs away.

 

* * *

 

Annabel tries to comfort him as best as she can. She feels guilty that she knows what’s going on with Lenore and HG and Edgar don’t. But she made a promise. And Annabel Lee does not break promises.

She likes HG. He’s a nice person, and a sometimes-refreshing break from Edgar.

(She loved...loved? Yes. Loved. Loved Edgar...but even she needed breaks from him from time to time.)

(She hadn’t told him that she loved him yet. She hoped he at least had a feeling about it.)

 

She’s sitting with HG in the library one morning, both working on their respective books. He’s working on some sort of scientific theory to do with his machine, and she listens as best she can to his running commentary on why his machine isn’t working and what he’s going to try next.

She doesn’t understand much of it, but she finds that it’s comforting to listen to and she knows that he enjoys being able to babble on about his theories without someone telling him it’s silly.

 

Side by side, both engrossed in their own work, neither half of the pair notice when Lenore floats into the library.

They jump when Lenore’s voice breaks the previously tranquil silence.

 

“Get. Away. From. Her.”

 

There’s fire and ice and fear and hate and rage and terror and it all swells up and it breaks something deep inside herself, as Lenore sees Annabel (her Annabel, her  _ best friend _ , he will not hurt her bestie again) sat within arm's reach of  _ him _ .

(She knows full well what he can do within arm’s reach of someone.)

(He won’t do that again.)

 

Annabel is the first to react, standing up and crossing the room towards Lenore because she  _ knows that voice _ .

(She knows pretty much everything about Lenore. Even some things Lenore doesn’t know about Lenore.)

 

(They were eight years old and arguing over something inconsequential - a doll - and they didn’t talk for four days afterwards.)

(They were fourteen years old and arguing over something inconsequential - a boy - and they didn’t talk for a month afterwards.)

(They were twenty two years old and arguing over something inconsequential - a wedding - and that was the last time they spoke as two living people.)

(Yes, Annabel Lee knows that voice.)

 

Lenore moves between her and HG, almost protecting her from him in a way that Annabel knows she doesn’t actually need, but knows better than to tell Lenore.

 

Annabel stills the explanation before it has a chance to barely begin.

She’s seen Lenore when she’s angry. She knows better.

 

HG, on the other hand, hasn’t known Lenore since she was five years old, and doesn’t know that when Lenore starts using  _ that voice _ , it was better to wait for the storm to pass.

(The storm always passes eventually.)

 

“Oh...um. Lenore. We...we were just discussing my theories for the time machine...I do believe that I’m very close to a breakthrough I just need to analyze the different frequencies of…”

 

“I said. Get. Away.” Lenore’s voice is cold and cuts him off before he could continue. She felt the hurt and rage building within her. He wouldn’t touch Annabel or any of them ever again. She couldn’t protect them before. She’d be damned if she wouldn’t at least try this time.

 

“Annabel, can you please leave.” It’s not a question, it’s not even a request. Her voice is thinly veiled rage, and she wants Annabel gone before she unleashes it.

She  _ needs _ Annabel gone before she unleashes it.

All this is to protect Annabel.

(If she can protect Annabel, everything will be okay.)

(If she can just protect Annabel from  _ him _ .)

 

She isn’t moving though, isn’t listening, isn’t leaving.

So Lenore breaks eye contact with him to look directly at her.

 

“Please,” she repeats. And it’s soft, and it’s almost pleading, but Lenore won’t show weakness when she’s not alone, and they’re not alone.

And Annabel quite clearly doesn’t want to leave, doesn’t want to leave the two of them alone when Lenore is clearly this angry - but it’s not like either of them can be harmed or killed, and besides - this has been a long time coming.

Perhaps things might even be easier between the pair of them once their feelings are out in the open.

So she leaves, “I’ll be in the next room over,” and it’s a threat as much as a promise, and then she’s gone.

 

And they’re alone - for the first time since the attic.

 

To be fair - they don’t argue.

That would require both parties to have something approaching equal yelling time.

 

Once the words start, she can’t stop.

“You stay away from her. You stay away from Edgar. You stay away from everyone and everything, living, dead or otherwise that may come in or near this house.”

“Lenore…” He tries to reply, but she doesn’t let him get any further than that.

“No.” Her voice is sharp, and if he isn’t going to comment on the tear pricking at the side of her eye, then she isn’t either. “You  _ killed _ them.”

 

She sees his face drop, whatever he had been expecting her to say, it hadn’t been that. But now she really can’t stop, the words flowing without her really controlling them.

“No one made you, no one  _ forced _ you. You killed them all. Because they were  _ mean to you _ . Even the ones who didn’t do anything to you. They’re dead and you killed them. They’re all dead and you killed them!.” She’s almost hysteric at this point, and the tear isn’t just pricking at the corner of her eye anymore, but she can’t stop.

 

She takes a step closer to him, and then another, and he’s still too shocked to move or even react to any of the things she was saying.

“You and your … and your  _ stupid _ machines. Your stupid inventions. You created them and you killed  _ over  _ them, and you killed  _ with  _ them. And they all died and it was just you and me, and you laughed. You  _ laughed _ . They’re all dead and you killed them and you  _ laughed _ .”

 

Hysterics no longer covered Lenore’s emotional state, as more tears streamed down her face than HG knew a ghost was capable of.

“I killed you though.” Her voice had dropped, as though she was confessing a deep secret. “I took the glass and I cut your neck open, and I  _ won _ . I killed you and I won, and I lost. I lost everyone. I was all alone. And it was all your fault.”

 

She was sinking slowly - the floor coming up to meet her, more than she was lowering to meet the floor - but she kept talking, kept whispering as her voice quietened. “You killed them all, and I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

 

Her voice trailed off into nothing, but he could see her still mouthing the words - her eyes glazed over and a million miles away from the library where he stood before her.

 

HG stands still, shocked. Her words reverberate in his head and it hurts him to think that she believes that he’s hurt her...or hurt Annabel or Edgar or anyone else.

And now she’s crying and broken on the floor, and that hurts him even more. Every word, every barb, every jab she had thrown at him paled in comparison to how he feels seeing her upset.

 

He slowly kneels next to her, awkwardly and shyly. He’s not sure she wants his comfort right now.

(He’s actually reasonably certain of this fact, but he can’t bring himself to not try.)

He reaches out tentatively to touch her, and is surprised when she doesn’t flinch away from him immediately. He doesn’t know what to do, how to do this. There was no book or scientific answer for how to comfort someone when they’re upset.

 

He’s surprised when he feels her lean into the touch and allows him to hold her. After the hateful and hurtful words she had screamed at him, the last thing he expected was for her to be receptive to any sort of comfort from her. He remembers another Lenore in another time holding him as he died in her arms. He wonders if maybe this Lenore would have done the same for him.

 

He holds her for a few moments while she cries, her body shaking next to him as the tears continue to fall. Comforting her and holding her feels natural. She’s not the same Lenore he knew and once called dear, but she’s still Lenore, and he still cares for her.

 

Her tears subside and she begins to relax. 

 

And then the moment is broken.

 

He feels her tense up under his touch as suddenly as she had leaned into it, and then she’s feeling from the room once again, leaving him confused in her wake.

 

His face drops from tentatively hopeful to … not so hopeful, as he watches the door she had fled through, wondering if he should follow.

Rising slowly, he comes to the realisation that it would just make matters worse, that she’ll find him when she’s ready.

 

He’ll wait until she’s ready.

However long that may be.

He’ll wait until she’s ready.

 


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is this home  
> Is this what I must learn to believe in  
> Try to find  
> Something good in this tragic place  
> Just in case  
> I should stay here forever  
> Held in this empty space"  
> -Home, Beauty and the Beast Original Broadway Production

Lenore may have banished Annabel from the room, but she couldn’t banish her much further than that.

 

It wasn’t like she was eavesdropping or anything.

(Okay - she was absolutely eavesdropping.)

(But Lenore would just tell her everything that happened - eventually - anyway.)

(She was just cutting down on her waiting.)

 

So by the time Lenore burst out of the library - not quite running, but definitely faster than a normal walking pace - there was little need for the red-headed woman to be caught up on the events between the pair.

 

The shouting (or, to be accurate -  _ Lenore’s _ shouting), the anger that turned to tears, whatever happened in the silence that seemed to stretch for hours and seconds and minutes all at the same time, whatever happened to make Lenore flee in such a fashion.

 

(So maybe there were still a few things she needed to be caught up with, but at least it’s better than having no knowledge of the events at all.)

 

Lenore appeared not to even see her in her haste to leave - but that never made much of a difference to Annabel. There were only so many places Lenore would consider ‘safe’ enough to retreat to in this … moment of emotion.

 

And despite Lenore’s many (many, many, many, many) attempts to convince them all of her lack of attachments to one specific room, Annabel knew the place Lenore would find herself in - whether she consciously intends to or not.

 

Catching a glimpse of HG as she passed the cracked door, he was on his feet - but his shoulders were sagged, his eyes closed, a crack in his exterior he would never show Lenore,

(Annabel knows how her repeated attempts at distancing herself hurts him.)

(Annabel knows he would never let her know how much it hurts.)

(Annabel hopes Lenore will come to her senses soon.)

 

There’s a sympathetic look on her face that he never sees, with his eyes closed to her.

It’ll be sorted soon, she tries to promise him telepathically, she’s still Lenore, under all her fear, she’s still our Lenore.

 

Lenore is exactly where Annabel guessed she would be - sat in the attic curled up in a ball as close as it was possible to be next to her time machine (without phasing through it), silent tears quite obviously streaming down her face even with most of her face obscured by her dress and the large machine.

Something inside Annabel’s chest didn’t quite snap, but definitely bent, as she watched her best friend so upset.

It was … different.

 

Lenore had cried before - obviously. She wasn’t some kind of mechanical monster - but it wasn’t … often. And before Annabel had always been able to fix it with a hug, or some chocolate.

She didn’t think a hug or chocolate would solve the problem this time.

 

But she settled in close to her best friend; soothing noises and calming words on her lips, already running through Lenore’s favourite hot chocolate recipe in her head (for when she’s ready to continue the conversation down in the kitchen).

 

That didn’t mean she couldn’t try.

 

==========

The attic had become a place of conflicting emotions for HG.

It had always been  _ her _ attic - the place where they properly met each, where they became friends, where they just talked for hours on end, where they could have become more but ran out of time.

It had merged slightly from  _ her  _ attic to  _ their _ attic, and then she was gone, and it was the last place she had ever stood.

 

So his feelings on the room had always been a bit askew, even as his inventions took over the room - unchecked by anyone.

 

Lenore thought it was adorable. 

Well, the first Lenore had. His Lenore.

And now with this Lenore...this other Lenore, different from the one he knew yet still the same in so many ways…he felt as if he was intruding on something. He knows she likes to escape to the attic when she's overwhelmed and he tries to stay out of her way when she does.

 

Lately, he's not sure where she's been escaping to. After what happened in the study he had barely seen her except at meals...and even then she seemed to only be there for just long enough to make sure Edgar ate and then she leaves. She flees. 

She always flees from him. 

It stings every time. 

(At least now he has some sort of context for her reaction, even if it wasn’t his fault for it happening.)

(It still hurts either way.)

 

He's working on fixing one of his machines when Lenore enters and he's startled because he hadn't expected her to ever want to be near him again after what had happened. 

(He wanted to help. He had tried. Annabel had told him to let her be and that she would come to him when she was ready.)

 

(It had been two whole weeks.)

(He’ll wait until she’s ready.)

(Even if waiting had never been his strong suit.)

 

“So…” she begins. He can see the anxiety still present in her eyes. He longs to reach out to her but resists. She hadn't exactly responded well the last time he had tried. 

 

He starts to say something in response but the words die on his lips as she spews out words so quickly that he feels that she must have been practicing what she wanted to say. 

 

“So like...I'm sorry for what I said and you can be friends with Annabel or whatever I won't stop you but I'm not going to let you hurt them and I won't apologize for that. And like...I'm sure you don't want anything to do with me and that's fine but we're stuck here together and we should probably figure out a way to make it work.”

 

HG is stunned by the words. It's not exactly an apology or explanation, but it's a truce. 

It's better than nothing. 

 

“Oh um...that's. That's fine, Lenore. You've obviously been through many things, most of which are truly traumatic. You...you don't need to apologize to me of all people. I...I just want to see you happy again.”

 

Lenore nods at him slightly and flees the room once more. He wanted to say more...reach out to her somehow, perhaps not physically but with his words. Make her trust him somehow. He had no idea how to help her heal...it seemed to be completely out of his ability. 

(He knows that Annabel had asked him to not try. He finds it hard to follow that when every fiber of his being tells him that he should help Lenore.)

 

But, he reasons, this is a truce.

And that’s a start.

 

========

Lenore doesn't really know why she keeps fleeing. 

She just….feels overwhelmed and when she's around him she starts to worry that he's going to snap. That at any moment he will flip and that evil glint will come into his eyes and his soft anxious voice will turn into that malicious angry voice that still haunted her. 

She doesn't know what she would do if she heard that voice again. 

She doesn't want to know.

(Consciously, at least.)

(She dreams about it sometimes, though. It involves fire and sharp objects and implausible explosions, and he never hurts anyone again.)

(The dream has been coming less and less frequently as the weeks pass.)

(She tries not to look too deeply into that.)

 

She was the one to offer a truce. For now.

(Mostly for Annabel. She had asked nicely, after all.)

 

He certainly hadn’t shown any hint of that evil being she had known him to be. Maybe this world was truly different. Maybe he wasn’t always going to be evil and maybe sometimes in some worlds he was truly good.

Contemplating that concept made both her head and her heart hurt.

 

There had been a time that seemed so long ago now where she would have completely trusted him. The him in this...place...she’d found herself in was so like the one she knew before she knew he was evil. The same mannerisms, the same way of talking...the same everything.

It was driving her crazy.

He’d even called her his “dear Lenore.”

(Although after her last reaction to that, she’d noticed that he’d stopped. She was relieved.)

(Mostly.)

 

(Everything had become so confusing.)

(She let him hold her.)

(Why had she let him  _ hold _ her?)

 

It’s in the little things that she realises she doesn’t completely hate him anymore.

(She can’t even tell when she stopped.)

 

It’s coming down in the morning, and Annabel and Edgar are safe and happy, and he’s safe and happy with them - and she doesn’t want to tear him from them.

 

It’s when she goes an entire twenty four hours without thinking of the world she left behind, the bodies that had fallen to the floor, the friends she had lost forever.

 

It’s when he doesn’t realise that she’s there and he’s rambling on about some invention or another, and she can  _ hear _ the pure joy in his voice.

She closes her eyes and she sees Annabel, cold and still and lifeless and all his fault.

She opens her eyes and she sees Annabel, cold but vibrant and alive (mostly), and that’s also kind of his fault (but in a good way this time).

 

She knows how much Annabel cares for the nerdy little professor. She knows how Edgar likes him in his own weird way.

She knows they watch her, she knows even  _ they _ don’t know which they care for more.

(It’s probably him. After all - she’s still the imposter Lenore. The replacement one. The kind-of-messed-up-convinced-he-is-gonna-murder-them-all-again one.)

 

She knows they’re not the only ones who watch her.

She wasn’t dumb. She knew he watched her whenever she came in the room.

Had it been a different pair of eyes looking at her with malice instead of hope she would have stared back in defiance.

But instead she only sees the quiet inventor who looks at her rather helplessly as if she’s the most radiant thing in the room.

 

(She almost wishes that she was able to look at him in the same way)

(Almost.)

 

It’s a sudden decision.

She’s had enough of running away.

She needs an explanation.

 

Annabel will just tell her what she wants to hear.

HG … After everything, he’s also going to tell her what she wants to hear.

 

She needs to find Edgar.

 

=======

 

Lenore finds Edgar in his study. He’s writing, of course. She sees the many crumpled up pages of discarded ideas and paragraphs littering the ground around him. 

Some things never change, it seems.

 

It takes him a moment to notice that she’s entered. He’s not startled, having been used to Lenore appearing out of nowhere for years now to bother him while he wrote. The scene is all-too-familiar to him and he almost makes a quip about how she’s bothering him again when he remembers that this isn’t the Lenore he knows.

(A fact that still bothers him in some corner of his mind. How could this Lenore be the same yet so different?)

(He tried to bring it up once at dinner, out of pure curiosity of course.)

(This had earned him a kick under the table from Annabel.)

 

“Yes. Lenore...what...what can I do for you?”

 

“You need to tell me everything. About that night. And I mean everything.”

 

Edgar paused. He wasn’t sure how much he  _ should _ tell Lenore since, after all, he knew that she didn’t know.

And Annabel had told him to try to avoid upsetting her.

(He knew better than to go against Annabel.)

(She was not someone to cross. He’d learned that the hard way.)

(He’d written several poems of apology to her before she spoke to him again the last time he’d accidentally upset her.)

(It wasn’t a feat he was looking to repeat any time soon.)

 

“Ev...everything?” he stalled, hoping Lenore would end up frustrated with him like she usually did.

However she was not to be deterred.

 

“Everything. Edgar...What happened? Why is Annabel dead and you’re alive? Why weren’t you killed too? Why is  _ HG _ a ghost?”

 

Edgar fidgeted nervously. “I… I don’t know what you mean, Lenore. We’re...we’re all okay here.”   
(That sounded bad even to his own ears.)   
(He hoped Annabel would return soon and save him from this conversation.)

(Maybe if he found a way out to go get her…?)

 

“I...um. I was just about to go find Annabel. She...she wanted to...to talk to you about....dinner! Tonight! She needs your help with something…”

Lenore’s death-glare stopped him from continuing his train of thought.

 

“No you weren’t. You’re just avoiding the question. I need  _ answers,  _ Edgar. No one has told me what actually happened here or  _ why _ everyone here seems to be okay with...with  _ HIM.  _ I can’t stand by and let him hurt you again. I can’t… I can’t do it. You don’t get it, Edgar. You never do. You and your silly poems about ravens and whatever other creep-tastic thing you’ve decided to write about this week. You live in your own little perfect oblivious world where nothing hurts and you and Annabel are happy. But you can’t trust him, Edgar. Just because  _ you’re _ oblivious doesn’t mean I have to be. And I’m not letting you bring Annabel down with you.”

 

Edgar has put up with a lot in his time with Lenore. She did, after all, move in with him after Annabel suggested it.

Well, that was another Lenore. Their Lenore. The Lenore they lost forever to death itself.

This Lenore is different. She always has been (at least in his limited time knowing her), and in his opinion, always will be.

Through his jumbled thoughts he vaguely realizes that Lenore is still railing against HG (H?....he still hadn’t figured that one out. He must have a real name of some sort) and he’s snapped back to reality when he hears her accuse him of putting Annabel in harm’s way.

 

And that’s when he snaps.

 

“Don’t you  _ dare _ accuse me of anything that could hurt Annabel!” His anger was sudden, and Lenore certainly hadn’t been expecting it. “You want to know everything? Well, in this universe it’s your fault Lenore. This is  _ your  _ fault. You died. And then Eddie came and killed  _ everyone _ . This is your fault. Not mine. Not Annabel’s, and certainly  _ not _ HG’s. This is all on  _ you. _ ”

He takes a deep breath and ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him to stop. “I'm the only one left alive here. How do you think that makes  _ me  _ feel? I carried Annabel back. I carried her lifeless body because he  _ killed  _ her out of spite because he was so angry that  _ your  _ fiancé killed himself because  _ you  _ died first. He killed everyone. He killed HG and you carried his body out of the attic and then he just kept killing everyone and it was all because of  _ YOU _ !”

 

Lenore backs away in shock. She hadn't been expecting this from Edgar of all people. 

She realizes that maybe she doesn't know what's happened here. 

 

Edgar’s look of fury immediately turns to one of regret and he opens his mouth to offer an explanation, but before he can, Lenore turned and fled.

 

Annabel rushes in a moment later, having heard the yelling. He helplessly shrugs his shoulders and she sighs and shakes her head, shooting him a look that was more pitying than disappointed.

  
He’s not sure which would have been better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading and supporting our story! We give pain because we care!


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "All that I was thinking about was cleaning up my conscience  
> Lost in the memory as it shakes up the corners of my heart  
> Was it my mistake?
> 
> Or maybe it was just as simple as a change in your heart  
> Just as simple as a change in your heart"
> 
> Kodaline, Love Like This

For a change, Lenore hasn’t disappeared to her attic.

(And Annabel went all the way in there - spiders and everything - to look for her.)

It still doesn’t take long to find her - the house is only so big, and there are only so many hiding places, even for someone who can phase through the walls.

 

She’s in the library.

Hidden in the library, if hidden means sat in her favourite chair, surrounded by her favourite books, and not making any attempt to hide.

 

Lenore hears her long before she sees her - a bonus of lots of shelving to hide behind (it really is a magnificent library) - but it doesn’t take Annabel long to find her, curled up in her favourite chair.

Lenore doesn’t even look at Annabel to ask, “My fault?” Her voice is small, and confused, and a little bit afraid, and Annabel’s a comforter - so she does what’s natural, and comforts her oldest friend.

“No, no, no.” She insists, and it’s true, but it’s not, and there’s a shaking to her voice that’s almost imperceptible, and Lenore knows Annabel doesn’t like to talk about their version of That Night. But she’s going to anyway. “Edgar shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t your fault.” She makes sure Lenore is looking at her, before repeating, “It was not your fault.”

And if Lenore can’t trust Annabel, there’s no one on the planet she can trust. So she nods her head, and she tries to believe the words.

 

But there was something else nagging at her. “He blamed my fiance. He blamed Guy,” she glanced down at the wedding dress that was a constant reminder of the life she had lost, and the people she would never see again. “Guy died … like properly died, and didn’t come back. How could he be involved with any of it?”

 

That seemed to be the exact thing that Annabel didn’t like to talk about - judging by the way she took in a deep breath of unnecessary air, and closed her eyes tight - almost involuntarily blocking out everything.

(Lenore imagines that’s how she looks - used to look - when she spoke about HG. Terrified and angry all combined in a confused little shell.)

There was a moment of silence, and then two, as Annabel seemed to be thinking something over inside her head. Lenore was about to apologise, to move the conversation along, when she finally spoke.

 

“Do you remember Eddie?” Annabel asks, her eyes still closed, every muscle tensed.

“Eddie?” Lenore vaguely recalled the banker - Annabel’s plus one for the evening, the man Edgar had considered his nemesis … before - the first one to die. ( _ Poisoning _ her  _ soup _ . Like - how low did you have to get?) “How did Eddie know Guy?”

“Edward de Vere.” Annabel’s answer was short - but it was far more detailed than anyone who wasn’t well acquainted with Lenore’s history would ever know.

Lenore’s face seemed to go through the five stages of grief in only a matter of seconds. “Edward?” she repeated, disbelieving. “But he was always away. I never met him, but Guy talked about him all the time. He was a good person. How could he…”

Her voice trailed off, as she realised what Annabel had clearly known for a while. This was exactly what they had all been saying about HG, and she just ignored them - focusing only on her own world, her own experiences.

She had to believe that this HG would never hurt anybody, or she had to pretend she believed that, and maybe eventually it would become true.

 

“Much of that night was the same as yours, but it was also different from the very beginning.” Annabel began to explain - her eyes open and a forced calm throughout her body. “I arrived late, with Eddie, and Edgar seated us as separately as possible.” She smiled slightly - caught up in her memories. “The lights flickered, and then Eddie was face down in the soup. But he wasn’t dead.”

 

It’s not a short story, and it’s not a happy story - but Lenore knew that from the start. A happy story doesn’t end with most of the characters dead.

(And if it does - then that’s a very strange happy story.)

 

It was the same and different to her night, and she recognised portions of it from her own memory.

There were more survivors in this world. And more of those who died came back regardless.

But there was still a lot of death, it was still a very difficult night to talk about.

 

Annabel explains her own death, and it’s the same - bar the culprit at least - as the death Lenore knew from her own world, but it’s different. To hear your best friend explain their own murder. But Annabel refuses to stop.

She hasn’t spoken about this night in a long time - most of it, she hasn’t spoken about at all.

She needs this, almost as much as Lenore does.

 

The sun has set by the time Annabel finishes her story with, “And then he escaped.”

 

And  _ escaping _ was not how Lenore expected that story to end, that much is written clearly across her face. “He won’t come back,” Annabel’s voice is sure about that, her eyes hardening for just a moment, and Lenore wants to ask her about it - but she remembers a wine glass stem going into a certain someone’s neck, and she remembers him falling and never getting up again, and she knows better than to question the ending.

 

There’s silence for a beat of time, both of them absorbing the tale - but they can’t stay for long - even if they want to.

Annabel has to leave and find Edgar and force him to apologise, and Lenore - well, Lenore doesn’t  _ have _ to do anything - but she leaves anyway, heading once again for her attic.

 

* * *

 

Even though he owned the house, Edgar rarely made his way to the attic.

After Lenore had claimed it as “hers” in a game of what she called “dibs” that he had somehow lost, he hadn’t bothered going up there.

Yet somehow he now found himself doing just that.

(Annabel had insisted that he apologize to Lenore.)

(He wasn’t the sort of man to turn down a request from the beautiful Annabel Lee when she was happy with him.)

(She was not, however, currently happy with him.)

(“Annabel she...she said I wasn’t protecting you and that…”)

(“I don’t care, Edgar. She’s been through a lot. Even you must be able to see that.”)

 

The attic was not what he remembered it from the last time he had been up there pre-Lenore.

Well. Pre-other-Lenore.

(They really needed to figure out how to differentiate between the two. It was enough to drive one mad.)

There were machines and parts and...things. Everywhere. Edgar was quite certain most of them were not there when he originally purchased the house.

And, of course, there was also Lenore...who was sitting with her back propped against some...large machine. The time machine, he guessed.

(He thought it would have looked...nicer. And not as large. It took up a good portion of the attic. He wasn’t sure how anyone was able to do anything else up here.)

 

Lenore was...reading? He couldn’t recall Lenore ever reading.

(But, he’s realizing, there was much he didn’t know about Lenore...either Lenore.)

 

He stands awkwardly for a moment, not wanting to startle her or interrupt her.

(He also realized that the longer he stood without saying anything the more likely it was that he would do just that.)

 

Finally Lenore sighs and looks at him - marking her place and shutting it, quite decisively - as if she’s known he was there the entire time.

(The man isn’t exactly subtle about his movements. Of course she’d known he was there the whole time.)

 

“What do you want, Edgar?” Lenore’s voice is cold and biting, and nothing like he’s heard her direct at him before, and he flinches.

(So, maybe this wasn’t his best idea.)

(But he had promised Annabel he’d make it right.)

(Anything for his Annabel.)

(That could probably be his motto.)

(That should probably be everyone’s motto.)

 

“Oh...um. I...I wanted to see how...how you’re doing. I see that you’re reading. That’s...good. Is...is that War of the Worlds?”

(The slight redness of her cheeks, as she tried to pretend not to hide the book, was not lost on him.)

 

“What do you really want, Edgar.” She sounded tired, and there was still a bite in her words, but the chill had left - replaced by a tone that was more recognisable as  _ Lenore _ .

 

“I...ah. I wanted to...talk?” He realizes he sounds pathetic even to his own ears. Maybe he should have written everything down.

(Annabel had strictly forbidden him from writing a poem about it.)

(Like he would have written a  _ poem _ .)

(... It would have been a good poem.)

 

“Then talk.”

 

He stumbles over his words, and tries to remember Annabel’s words - that he needs to be  _ nice _ and  _ patient. _

(“She’s been through a lot Edgar. A. Lot. And no, I won’t tell you because it’s her story to tell. Just be nice to her. She needs it.”)

 

“I...well I wanted to say that I am...truly sorry for everything I said. Annabel told me I was harsh. That I was too harsh, and that you deserved an apology. She said she had...explained everything to you so that I wouldn’t need to. And that you deserve to be happy and that you’re...not.”

 

Lenore quirked her eyebrow at his rushed apology. It sounded like something spoon-fed to him by Annabel, but she’d take it. This Edgar was so much like the other Edgar...awkward, and surprisingly  _ terrible  _ at talking to people despite being an author.

(The amount of conversations she’d had with him about that were enough to make her head spin.)

(She was glad in this world he and Annabel had finally ended up together. She wasn’t sure she could take his emo-tastic pining in two universes.)

 

“And um…” he continued. “If...if you don’t want to stay here, you don’t have to. But...you’re more than welcome here. The attic...it’s, well. It’s yours. Annabel said it was yours in the world you came from, so it...it makes sense for it to be yours here, too. And HG’s. If...if you want it to be, that is. I can...talk to him if you’d like and tell him that he should...find other arrangements or something more agreeable. It’s...it’s been a difficult time. For all of us.”

 

“We...we missed you, Lenore. You’re different from our Lenore, but...still. You’re Lenore. And this house...needs you.”

 

Lenore was silent for a moment. Edgar nodded and turned to leave, having said his part.   
(After all, he wasn’t much for standing around and continuing to talk once a conversation had ended.)

(Except with Annabel.)

 

“Careful, Edgar. That was a happy feeling and might be too much for your emo self to even deal with.”

 

He stops and looks back at her and sees a small smile on her face, reminiscent of one he’d seen so many other times on another Lenore’s face in another time.

Maybe this Lenore isn’t as different as he’d thought.

The familiar jab makes him smile.

Maybe...just maybe...things will be okay after all.

 

(He still leaves awkwardly without saying anything else. Some things are the same in all universes. Edgar not understanding how to people is one of them.)

 

Lenore manages to go twenty five whole minutes before she regales Annabel with the tale - Edgar’s  weird endearing mannerisms and all.

If she exaggerates certain portions - well, she doesn’t exaggerate much, and it’s entirely believable that Edgar would behave in such a way - and she can’t remember the last time she laughed so much, especially not with Annabel by her side.

(She can.)

(It was a long time ago, before weddings and ghosts and growing up. A different time.)

(They deserve to laugh again.)

 

They talk for hours, the conversation once again free and easy, the way it had been once before - and Annabel doesn’t ask, but Lenore gives her permission regardless to explain everything (everything-everything) to Edgar (in small words that he would understand).

 

(She acts as though this is a Big Deal ™ to  _ let  _ Annabel talk to Edgar about her past - but like, both of them know she just doesn’t want to have that conversation with her pseudo-brother. It was hard enough having it twice already. She can let Annabel take this one.)

 

* * *

 

Weeks pass and a tentative, almost hopeful feeling settles upon the occupants of the house. Lenore doesn’t always flee the room when HG walks in, much to his delight. He knows better than to push his luck, however, and tries to keep his interactions with her cordial and friendly, but nothing more than that.

 

(Only Annabel notices the flash of heartbreak and longing across his face that happens whenever he knows Lenore isn’t looking.)

(She knows healing is a process, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pain her to see.)

 

When HG bursts into the study one day interrupting Annabel and Lenore’s “girl time” and is excitedly babbling about some scientific breakthrough he’s had in his research on why his machine isn’t working, Lenore actually smiles and realizes that it’s maybe just a little bit adorable how excited he gets over his science and his machines and his gadgets.

For the first time she doesn’t see  _ him _ ...but she sees the HG that’s in front of her who doesn’t seem capable of the pain and heartache and hatred she’d seen him cause her once.

(She doesn’t let herself dwell on that thought for too long. It’s totally confusing and she doesn’t need that kind of drama in her head right now.)

(She’ll talk to Annabel about it later. Maybe.)

(Or maybe she’ll keep this to herself for now.)

 

She’s trying to follow along to the scientific explanation that’s spewing forth from HG’s mouth, but Lenore realized that she really did not understand  _ any _ of it. And...she found that she wanted to.

(She told herself that if he’s planning to kill them all she might as well understand the science behind it. But even she doesn’t believe that reasoning.)

 

“Wait...can you like...back up and explain that again?”

 

HG paused his rambling at her words. Did...did  _ Lenore _ just ask him to explain his theory to her? His mind reeled, trying to find the words and process everything at the same time. He felt a small kernel of hope ignite in his heart and he tried to ignore it.

After all, he’d had that before and she’d crushed that when she’d attacked him.

And again when she’d leaned into his embrace only to have it snuffed out when she ran from him.

So he tries (and fails) to ignore it happening now as he opens the book he’d been making notes into and sits down next to Lenore and begins to explain what was happening to her.

“Now see, I have been miscalculating these frequencies all along. It was only through luck that it happened to work the first time, however I have realized that if I transpose these numbers here…”

 

Lenore tries to follow along. She really does. In her defense, it’s a lot of science and big words and things that she had never cared about before.

Instead she finds herself watching how his face lights up as he explains the science to her, how animated his hands get as he explains things to her and points out different equations and theories he tried.

She finds herself listening to the passion in his voice as he talks about how he’s close to figuring out how to make the machine work again.

 

Of course, Edgar chooses this moment to barge into the study, breaking the moment.

(He had a new poem he wanted Annabel to read. He just wanted someone to tell him it was  _ good. _ )

 

Annabel, who had been watching the exchange between Lenore and HG with amusement, gestures for Edgar to come sit by her. She takes the poem out of his hands and begins reading it while he anxiously sits next to her.

 

Lenore glances over at the two of them and almost bursts out laughing. Edgar looked so...nervous? Like a schoolboy on the playground who had passed a note to his crush and wanted them to say they liked him back.

 

“Edgar, calm down. She already likes you. She’s not like...going to run away just because you write creepy poems and stuff.”

(To his credit, Edgar looked properly chastised.)

 

It’s Annabel who giggles first.

* * *

A fifth pair of dark eyes - identical to another familiar pair already sat within the room - watched over the happy scene, unseen by any member of the merry household.

 

A wry smirk flitted across their lips, obviously amused at the domestic scene in front of them.

Everything was coming together almost perfectly, as if they had planned the entire thing.

(They had absolutely planned the whole thing.)

(Kind of.)

 

It was a shame all their hard work was (as yet) unnoticed.

But it was not time yet.

 

It would be time soon.

It would be time very soon.

 


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Your bare feet sliding on the old wooden floorboards  
> Home just as you left it but still you’re shaken  
> Like walking into a museum somehow out of time."  
> -"How To Return Home", Kerrigan & Lowdermilk

It became a regular thing. HG would explain the science of the time machine to Lenore, and Lenore would listen and nod along as if she knew what he was talking about.

(She didn’t.)

(He was very aware that she had no idea what he was talking about, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to make her flee. Again.)

 

Time passes and they fall into a regular rhythm. HG will be working on the machine in the attic and Lenore will eventually wander up to the attic, avoiding Edgar as always. She’ll sit and watch him work for a bit, a curious look on her face.

The entire thing feels familiar to them both, but for different reasons.

HG remembers the time he and...his….Lenore spent in the attic working on gadgets and getting to know each other after the fateful party.

Lenore remembers working during her party with the...other HG. Before everything happened. Before he killed everyone and she stopped trusting him.

 

Somewhere between then and now she’d started to...maybe...trust him again.

 

She’s watching him work one day. He’s excited, she can tell. Something about frequencies and alignments and being close to some sort of breakthrough. And then he realized that he needed a book from downstairs, and would she be okay if he left to go get it for just a moment?

 

“Of course I’m okay, you nerd. Go get your book.” She smiles when he blushes and rushes out of the attic in an embarrassed rush.

 

Being alone in the attic doesn’t feel as hopeless as it once did. It doesn’t feel as overwhelming, and the sight of all the gadgets and inventions no longer make her want to destroy things.

(She should, at some point, she realized...apologize for the destroyed inventions she’d thrown against the wall a few months ago. She’d add it to the list.)

 

Which is why when she hears a voice come out of nowhere that’s familiar and yet at the same time...not...she jumps.

 

Standing across from her is another...her? 

It was almost like looking into a mirror.

Actually it was  _ exactly  _ like looking into a mirror.

 

“So like...this is awkward.”

 

=====

Honestly, Lenore hadn’t even been trying to ‘visit’.

She’d been perfectly happy on her side of the barrier - looking in on her old friends (and the other version of herself) every now and again.

It was just ... all her friends were idiots.

Yeah - all her friends were idiots.

 

She was in the middle of her regular morning rant to nobody (seriously? HG - a killer? He’s like a little bean. So smol and adorable. Not a killer), and when the air in front of her seems to shift into molten glass, she doesn’t even think before stepping through.

And that’s how she ended up back in her attic for the first time in many months.

(She needs to work on that whole - ‘thinking before acting’ thing.)

 

(This is how you end up standing in front of your own doppelganger from an alternative dimension.)

(Maybe Lenore’s friends weren’t the only idiots she knew.)

 

(On a side note - HG really needed to reign in the whole ‘inventing’ thing. Like - how big do you think this room is?)

 

But there would be time to berate herself later - right now, there was a shell-shocked ghost from another dimension just … staring at her.

(Like - was it really that strange to see an identical copy of yourself appear from thin air?)

(Yes - yes, it was.)

 

But as the one that actually knew what was going on, it was up to her to provide an explanation.

(To try to provide an explanation.)

 

“Sorry.” She apologised, straightening out her dress slightly, all the while peering curiously into a mirror that hadn’t been there the last time she was in this room. “You’re not crazy. I promise.”  _ Crazier than you already are _ , she added silently - but that wouldn’t be helpful to the situation, so she managed to stop herself from saying it aloud. “I’m you...but a different you. I’m...well I’m this universe’s you.” 

 

There.

That should help.

 

From the frozen expression on Other-Lenore’s face, it didn’t seem to.

=====

 

Lenore was still trying to process the whole idea of … well, the first Lenore standing in front of her (and hadn’t HG said something about her passing onto … whatever came after ghost-hood.), when the look of curiosity on the first Lenore’s face shifted into something a bit … angrier.

 

She wasn’t expecting the smack upside her head.

Like, what?

(Who even hits someone they just met?)

(It’s just not a thing people do - even suddenly-appearing-alternate-versions-of-yourself-people)

 

“Okay first.. HG? Not. A. Killer. Like I don’t even think he could hurt a spider even if Annabel was panicking about them. He’d just set the thing free outside or something. Second...can you maybe try talking to him about all of this? Like I get that you’re doing the whole “tortured soul” thing but girl, it’s not a good look on you...us. Whatever.”

(It seemed to be a cross between a planned speech and something she was making up on the spot.)

(It was.)

 

The words still hit her and they sting. 

She’d known for a while, of course, that HG wasn’t the killer. He wasn’t  _ him _ with the crazy look in his eyes and the plans to kill everyone and bring himself down with it. 

She doesn’t have a good explanation for this other version of her.

(A fact that was  _ seriously _ hurting her brain. As if her afterlife needed anything else weird, it throws this at her.)

 

“Third, he deserves to know what happened and you know it. All you’ve done is either try to attack him like some sort of crazy person, run away from him, or just ignore everything. Don’t pretend you haven’t seen the way he looks at you. He never looked at me like that. He never got the chance to.”

(The small sad look that flashes across her face isn’t lost on Lenore. She’s seen that look on her own face too many times. Annabel has called her on it too many times.)

 

And then her brain catches up with her ears.

 

“What...what do you mean ‘look’...there’s no look. He doesn’t….he couldn’t….not after everything I said. He couldn’t….”

 

“Sweetie, denial isn’t a good look on you either. We gotta work on that.” The other her smirks at her and Lenore looks away in embarrassment. 

 

“They...they miss you. I’m...I’m not you. They want you back.” 

And then a panicked thought comes to her brain that she can’t stop from escaping.

 

“Are you here to make me leave?”

 

She hadn’t thought about leaving. She’d accepted that she was stuck.

But if this Lenore could come back then maybe...maybe she was being sent back.

Maybe that was her punishment for treating everyone like she had.

(It would be fitting. Take her away from a second chance at happiness because she hadn’t allowed it to happen.)

(The universe liked to be cruel like that.)

 

“What! No. I’m not like...here to take over or ask you to leave or anything. Besides, Guy would be like super-worried if I didn’t come back.” Lenore feels herself relax at those words. “I can’t stay long. That’s the issue with this whole ‘coming back’ thing...I can only do it like...temporarily. I don’t even know how it works. I think it’s to do with emotions. Or if I have enough power.” Her voice started to trail off as she was speaking more to herself than to Lenore. “Maybe if Guy lent me some power, I could ...” Her voice trailed off completely, and she stared blankly for a moment, before returning to her senses.

 

“Anyways. That’s enough about  _ me.  _ I’m here to help  _ you. _ ” She gestured with her hands towards Lenore. “So like...talk.”

 

“I’m just...I’m scared. What if something happens and I lose them? I...I can’t do that again. It hurt too much the first time.”

 

Lenore can’t stop the fear from sprouting forth. It’s not something she’s voiced out loud just yet.

(Dealing with emotions was not her strong point. It’s something she actually had in common with Edgar but she would never admit it.)

(At least not where he could hear her.)

 

“You might. You might not. Life is short. Or I guess...afterlife can be?”

(It had been for her at least.)

(The laws and rules surrounding this sort of thing were too complicated.)

“But like...you’re here now. You have a second chance. You should totally take it. Not a lot of people get second chances”

 

“I don’t even know why I ended up here!” Her voice is close to exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air.

The other-Lenore’s eyes widen slightly in response to that - almost imperceptible, but Lenore knows this Lenore like herself.

(They are the same person - used to be the same person - after all.)

“What?” And if she was suspicious, then she had every right to be - there was clearly something being kept from her here.

 

“I know it sounds totes cray but listen. I moved on...kind of. But for a bit I was in this like...in-between space where there was nothing, but I could still see what was happening here. And then I...I saw another  _ me. _ Except it wasn’t me and that was totally weird. And I guess...that must have been you.”

 

Lenore can’t do anything but listen - everything else she’d been told, she already knew (deep, deep inside herself) - but this was new.

She couldn’t afford to miss a single word. This was important.

 

The first Lenore continued, almost in a single breath.

“And then I realized that you were...sad. And I didn’t want you to be sad...if you’re another me then you’re like, too fab to be sad. And everyone here was totes emo about me leaving so I guess I kind of...sent you here. I didn’t really think that one through. Sorry about that.” 

 

There aren’t any words to reply to that.

She wasn’t brought here by mistake. This wasn’t some sort of fluke or glitch or some sort of punishment or atonement for her life in the other world.

This was intentional.

She’s not sure if she’s thankful or angry.

 

But there’s no time - there never seems to be time - if the sharp intake of breath from the original-Lenore is any indication.

“Well, that seems to be all the time I have,” her voice was falsely chipper, and there was so much Lenore still wanted to ask - but more importantly...

“Do you have to go so soon? Annabel’s just downstairs, Edgar and HG too. They’d love to see you. They miss you.”

“They don’t need me though. They have you now. I would just hurt them all over again.” She glances away, and Lenore pretends not to see the start of a tear in the corner of her eye. “I can’t be gone for long anyway - Guy worries when I disappear.” This, at least, led to a smile on her face - and Lenore was glad that the other version of herself was happy, wherever in the beyond she was.

 

And she’s pulled into a quick - but still fierce - hug that she really wasn’t expecting.

(How can someone be so like her, yet still behave so unexpectedly the entire time?)

(Has she really changed that much since … before?)

It’s weird, but it was better than the slap the conversation had begun with.

 

The first Lenore started to disappear more rapidly; flickering around the edges as she quickly became less corporeal before Lenore’s eyes.

“I don’t know what he’s so worried about. It’s not like I can die for a third time.”

“Well, if anyone was going to die three times it would be you … us.”

It wasn’t a goodbye, but it kind of was - a special sort of Lenore goodbye that only the two of them understood.

“Yeah, that…” she looked like she had more to say, but it was too late.

 

And Lenore was alone in the attic once again.

 

It’s only seconds later that HG walks back through the door - all arms and legs, and noises and enthusiasm, and babbling an apology about … something, about why it took him so long.

(Edgar cornered him, wanting his opinion on  _ another _ poem for Annabel.)

(Like seriously - he could have one of his goddamned ravens walk across the page, and she would frame it and love it forever. Stop panicking over everything.)

But he did get his book - eventually - and he’d even picked up one of Lenore’s magazines so she wouldn’t feel so bored just watching him work.

 

It’s too much, too soon, and it’s  _ so sweet _ , but she needs to process this, needs to work out what just happened with her identical self.

She needs to get away - from the attic, from HG, from herself.

(She can’t - but she needs to try.)

 

She looks down at the magazine that she’s not quite sure how ended up in her hands, and looks back at him.

And she can’t do it.

“I … I can’t… ,” she begins, as she gets up to flee.

(She’s good at fleeing. She’s good at avoiding everything it seems.)

But she can’t do that either.

(Other-Lenore was right. HG deserves more. He deserves more from her.) 

(She can’t seem to do anything these days.)

 

(But she knows how he looks her - knows how he’s looking at her  _ right now _ , even as she’s purposefully not looking at him.)

(She knows all she does is hurt him, even when she doesn’t mean to.)

(She doesn’t want to hurt him anymore.)

 

(She doesn’t want to hurt him, doesn’t want to hurt him, doesn’t want to hurt him.)

(How did she even get here?)

(How did she ever hate him?)

(She hasn’t hated him in a long time.)

(When did she even stop hating him?)

(She doesn’t want to hurt him anymore.)

 

So she stops. Briefly, at least. A small smile flits across her lips, unbidden.

“Thank you for the magazine. I, uh, I’m sorry. … I can’t.”

She reaches out and squeezes his hand softly - the most physical contact they’ve had since  _ that  _ day in the library. 

 

And  _ then _ she flees from the attic.

(Hey - it was a start.)

(A terrible start perhaps, but still.)

 

But - for the first time - HG follows her.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes  
> They've seen things that you never quite say, but I hear  
> Come out of hiding, I'm right here beside you  
> And I'll stay there as long as you let me"
> 
> You Matter To Me, Sara Bareilles

**** Lenore makes it all the way to the library before she realizes that HG is following her. 

(That’s new. Usually he just lets her go.)

She stops and turns around, just as he enters the room. He looks...determined. Like he does when he’s inventing, but there’s something else there. A pained look that Lenore realizes she’s responsible for.

(It hurts, knowing that she’s responsible for making him look so sad.)

(The other Lenore was right. He really does deserve better from her. She can’t keep doing this to him.)

 

“Lenore, you….you keep running away.” She wants to say something but can’t, can’t bring herself to interrupt him. He needs to say this, and she needs to listen. It makes a change from their usual dynamic. “I can’t help but feel almost as if I’m the problem and I don’t want to cause you any more hurt so please, tell me what I can do to fix it. Please. Let me help.”

His eyes are (ablaze is the wrong word, it’s more  _ real _ that that, they’re)  _ alive _ , and his short speech was practically a single breath, the whole statement spoken with the fear that if he doesn’t say it now, he never will.

And he needs to fix this. She needs to let him  _ help _ her fix it.

 

It’s quiet.

The words sink in.

Neither party moves.

 

(He’s scared she’ll run away.)

(Again.)

(Prior history would suggest he has a point with that fear.)

 

Lenore closed her eyes briefly. She couldn’t see that pained almost hopeless look on his face. Not when she’s going to say something that will make it worse.

 

“You … you can’t. You can’t fix this. You can’t fix me.” She starts, and this wasn’t going to be a long rant, but now the words are coming and she doesn’t think she can stop them. Doesn’t think she wants to stop them. “You are not the problem. Not this you, anyway. And you don’t deserve this. Don’t deserve to have to deal with me. You deserve … Annabel. Sunshine and rainbows and forest animals dancing around her feet. Not this.”

Her eyes are open now, but she’s avoiding looking at him. It’s hard. He’s looking right at her. She keeps going, keeps trying to explain herself, explain why he should just forget about her. ”You’re like, kind and patient and clever and I’m not. I’m not any of those things. I mean - I literally attacked you. Why do you keep trying to help me? Why don’t you just forget about me? And I ran away from you. Again and again and again. I ran away from you and from all of this. From everything.” There’s a moment, and her voice is winding down, her rant … tirade … speech … whatever, coming to an end. “You … you deserve someone who won’t run away from you all the freaking time. You deserve more.”

 

There’s a pause.

HG needs time to process her words, as she needed time to process his.

And she doesn’t run away. Every molecule in her body is screaming at her to run, is screaming that he wouldn’t follow again so soon, but she stays.

He deserves that much.

 

“How can you be so sure I can’t help you if you don’t let me? If you don’t let anybody?” His voice is soft and careful, and she’d forgotten how much she liked this version of his voice. “You barely let Annabel help you and she’s your best friend. You’re not alone anymore Lenore. We’re here. Let us help you.”

There’s a slight uptick to his voice now, and he sounds completely sincere to any passive listener - but Lenore knows that’s his mischievous voice (and she kind of hates that she knows that’s his mischievous voice, but she wouldn’t have it any other way). “And speaking of Annabel, I don’t  _ want _ Annabel. Besides, even if I did, I think she and Edgar would have something to say about  _ that _ , and then it would be dreadfully awkward to keep living with them.”

Lenore snorted softly, completely unable to imagine Annabel with anyone but weird old Edgar by her side. He had a point.

“It’s  _ you _ . Lenore. It’s been you since we met at that dinner party, and then I lost you. But you came back. You’re real, you’re here, and I can’t lose you. Not again. So please, let me help you. Let me help fix this.”

 

She smiled - a real and rare smile that seemed to come from her whole body at once. His favourite smile (not that anyone else but him knew that).

“I can’t promise not to run away again.” Her voice was quiet. It was a joke but it also … wasn’t.

She couldn’t promise not to run away again - couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t flinch away from him tomorrow or three weeks from now, or in an hours time.

She wanted to try though.

 

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t run away. I’ve actually gotten rather used to it.” There was a pause before he continued, looking at anything but her this time, “And I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t follow you. Every time.” It was a promise and he meant it, the emotion deep enough that Lenore knew he meant it too, and she wondered - not for the first time, not for the hundredth time - how he keep coming back to her.

 

Whatever did she do to deserve someone like him in her life.

 

“Anyway,” he continued, on a lighter note - now able to look at her again. “I seem to remember you promising never to stop hating me. I’d like to think you’ve stopped hating me.”

Lenore’s mouth gaped. “How … how did…” The answer came easy enough to both of them.

Annabel.

“She means well. She’s happy, and she wants everyone to be happy. Can you blame her? Also,” he lowered his voice as though he were about to impart some great secret, “you weren’t exactly subtle. You ‘literally attacked’ me”

There was a slight smirk in his voice as he copied her own words, and she couldn’t help her laugh.

Subtlety ... may not be her greatest asset.

 

“We’re friends, right?” She asked, after a moment of amiable silence.

“Yeah,” he agreed, his eyes unwavering from her, “we’re friends.”

 

The comfortable silence continued, the two of them sat, side by side in their little corner of the library.

* * *

 

And the days pass, as they always have and always will, and things finally seem to settle for the first time since Lenore had arrived in this other world.

She and HG begin spending more time together, not just at dinner or in the attic. Lenore will sit with HG in the study or the library while he works on calculations, and he’ll join her in the kitchen when she cooks food for Edgar. 

His names for his contraptions no longer fill her with dread and she no longer associates them with memories of another him in another time trying to blow up the entire house and take her with it.

 

It’s better (so much better) than the half-truce they’d been living under before. Neither of them felt as if they were invading the other’s space anymore. 

(Or at least Lenore no longer felt like her attic had been invaded.)

(Even though HG’s inventions still took up most of the space it at least didn’t fill her with hatred and dread anymore.)

 

There are still moments where HG sees Lenore flinch or wince. He knows that she thinks he doesn’t see it.

He tries his best not to be the cause of it, but sometimes he slips into old habits. He’ll be talking about the time machine and how he got it to work the last time and how he had returned and then he’ll see Lenore tense up.

He’ll run through everything he just said out loud in his brain to find what happened. He was sure that, for once, he hadn’t said anything that should have caused her to run or flinch...she was a new Lenore no longer associated with “their Lenore” in his…

 

Oh. 

Their Lenore. Our Lenore. He’d said that out loud, hadn’t he.

(And then she’d fled, but with a genuine flash of hurt across her face instead of the usual combination of fear and confusion.)

(He made a mental note to be better at thinking things through before his brain spewed them out into the open.)

 

But unlike before, he follows her and he apologizes and sits with her until she’s ready to come back. 

And unlike before, she always comes back.

 

A few days later Lenore is reading one of her magazines while sitting on top of one of the trunks in the attic while HG works. He’s been close to a breakthrough for weeks, yet every time he tries something the machine remains silent, taunting him.

 

(Lenore of course pretended she didn’t see him kick the machine after the one time it did make noise and then fell silent again.)

(It hadn’t done that since. It just sat. Silently.)

(And she definitely hadn’t giggled when he angrily hit the offending machine, but it was just that he was always so calm and composed that to see him get frustrated for once was amusing for her. But she definitely hadn’t giggled at his misfortune.)

(The glare he’d shot her said otherwise.)

 

All of a sudden there’s a sputter and smoke and noise and the machine comes to life in front of them. And then it stays on and doesn’t sputter and die like the last time. The smoke fills the attic and a metallic burning smell creeps in, but HG doesn’t care. He’d done it. He’d made it work.

 

“It...it works!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, the tools he’d had in them scattering to the corners of the attic. 

(He’s just as shocked as Lenore is. He wasn’t expecting it to work. Every other time he’d tried, he’d been greeted with silence and frustration.)

“I...I must have achieved the correct synthesis between the two systems. You see, the machine was working up until the moment the other machine arrived, creating a sort of paradox between the two, what with the one you arrived in not being part of this universe. Because of that, the machines were consistently working against one another to contain the paradox from spreading and allowing other things or people to move between both worlds. So you see all I had to do was…”

 

Lenore was amused, but she needed him to slow down for just a second. He was getting way ahead of himself with the explanation and the science and she wasn’t following.

(And she wanted to understand. At least a little bit.)

(But he was talking too fast and his hands were moving too much and she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.)

 

“Whoa, Goggles. Slow down. You’ve got a time machine now, you don’t need to talk so fast.” She reached out her hands to still both of his.

 

HG stopped speaking in the middle of his sentence and looked down at their hands, and then back up to her. For once he didn’t see the fear in her eyes that usually accompanied such a gesture. Instead he saw her hope and amusement and...and more.

He hadn’t hoped for more in a long time.

(He’d made himself stop hoping sometime after  _ that  _ day in the library where she’d cried and he’d tried to hold her.)

He’s suddenly acutely aware of how close the two of them are standing and that she’s willingly touching him and not running away and that perhaps, maybe...there was a reason to hope again.

(And just maybe...she felt that hope too.)

 

And for one moment (one glorious moment) there was nothing but the two of them.

No past, no future, no alternate dimensions, no other occupants of the house, no time machine that may or may not be on fire.

Just the two of them, eternity stretching at their fingertips, a lifetime in their gaze.

 

There were no words needed, nothing to shatter the fragility, and if HG leaned in slightly, it’s only because Lenore leaned in first.

They were alone in their world of two, and ...

 

… And that is the precise moment Edgar walks in.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There is one thing that's eternal,  
> That cannot be torn apart,  
> There is one thing that remains forever true.  
> Past the thinking, past the breathing,  
> Past the beating of my heart,  
> It will all fade away but you."  
> -It All Fades Away, Bridges of Madison County

The moment not just gone, but shattered seemingly beyond repair, Lenore couldn’t have dropped her hand from his faster if it had been burning her.

 

Edgar doesn’t even notice their movement, his eyes darting around the room, his every movement frantic. Annabel is barely half a step behind him, a panicked look on her face that was dissipating with every moment she was in the room, and a knowing glint in her eye that Lenore knows will lead to an interrogation in the near future.

 

“We...we smelled smoke and we got worried that something had….oh.” His voice trails off, finally noticing the pair - or at least the working time machine now lit up behind the pair.

Annabel notices less the time machine and more the distance (or lack of it, as the case may be) between them. The physical contact may have been dropped, but they were still stood rather much closer to each other than they (read: Lenore) would have previously allowed.

It was almost enough to make her smile, if it wasn’t for the still quite prevalent smell of smoke and the fact that Edgar was still alive and fire could still kill him. Fire, bad.

 

It’s HG who moves first, taking a halting step backwards and seemingly barely able to tear his eyes from Lenore to look instead at his beloved machine. “Oh, um … the time machine,” he began, and he’s glad to see that (though the smell remains) the smoke has gone, the machine is still working, it’s  _ real _ , it’s  _ actually working _ , he’s  _ done it _ .

(He might be a little bit excited.)

(Who could blame him?)

“It … it seems that by adding a new power supply and accounting for the differences in the power drain the machine causes when it’s operating I was able to…” his voice gets more confident, more excited as he keeps talking, two minutes in and he’s already practically forgotten Edgar and Annabel are in the room.

 

Lenore knows this. She knows (all too well) how he gets when he’s talking about an invention.

Especially a working invention.

(And this was his time machine.)

Edgar may not understand like 90% of HG’s work, but even he understands ‘Time’ and ‘Machine’.

And Annabel … Annabel is good at not drawing attention to things that don’t need attention.

 

Like Lenore sneaking away, while everyone’s focus is on the time machine.

 

She doesn’t look back as she disappears around the corner.

And then she’s gone.

Again.

 

She should have looked back.

If she had she would have noticed HG’s explanation dying on his lips as he watches her leave.

She would have noticed how he always feels so helpless when she leaves.

She would have noticed how he moved to follow her - like he promised - only to be stopped with a single Look™ from Annabel.

She would have noticed how he let Annabel follow her instead - everyone knows that look. Everyone knows better than to argue with that look.

She would have noticed how he was left alone in the attic with Edgar, how he’ll wait for her until she ready, how he’ll always wait for her.

 

But she didn’t look back.

So she didn’t notice any of that.

(This time.)

 

An awkward silence settles over the room that HG hasn’t felt in a long time - not since that strange period of time between Lenore hating him, and Lenore realising she was only pretending to hate him. Edar knows he’s out of place, but it’s his house, he can’t just … leave.

 

“Just...just please don’t burn my house down.” The sentence is short, and very Edgar, but he’s well-meaning, and HG can hear the ‘be careful’ hidden within.

And then it seems he can just … leave.

As abruptly as he’d entered.

 

And HG is the one left alone.

Again.

 

He sighs. He wants to leave as well.

Find Lenore, talk to Lenore.

(They’ve gotten good at talking recently. He’d hate for their progress to run backwards.)

But she’s talking to Annabel. And those conversations are usually not on the shorter side of things. And neither Annabel nor Lenore were fond of being interrupted.

 

He’ll find Lenore later, he’ll talk to Lenore later.

She knows where to find him.

He knows where he’ll find her as well.

 

But in the meantime, there is still a time machine (a now working time machine, that he never thought he would actually see, in his attic) to deal with.

There were tests and experiments and modifications, to make sure it was safe, to make sure it would work correctly, to make sure he could programme it to take him wherever he wanted to go.

 

And he wonders where Lenore will want to visit first.

* * *

Annabel finds Lenore in the library curled up in one of the large leather chairs that Edgar insisted upon keeping (not for lack of Lenore trying to get him to redecorate and make the place “less gloomy and emo”). 

She isn’t reading or doing anything. She’s just...staring out the window.

Annabel sits down across from her and waits.

She knows Lenore will talk when she’s ready. She always does.

 

Minutes pass, and Annabel shifts in her chair, not anxiously or impatiently, but to get comfortable. She’s used to waiting for Lenore to talk. Years of this very scenario playing out as children growing up had taught her endless patience.

 

(There had been a time when Annabel had been less patient. Years ago when they were small before boys and marriages and death and a murder mystery party gone wrong.)

(They were 8 and Annabel wanted Lenore to tell her why she was crying.)

(Lenore did not take kindly to Annabel constantly asking her what was wrong.)

(Annabel had only wanted to help.)

(Years of practice had shaped her into a person who could now patiently wait for her friend to tell her what was wrong.)

 

“Annababe...I...I like him.” Lenore started quietly, breaking the silence between them.  “I didn’t want to like him. I tried  _ not _ to like him. Like I did everything I could not to. I hated him. I swore I would hate him for what he...what he did to you. But he’s not...him. He’s different. And I’m so scared, Annabel. What...what if I hurt him...again? What if he hurts me too?”

 

Annabel had known this was coming for weeks now. She’d seen the way the two ghosts looked at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking. She hadn’t seen HG look that way since that day in the study when he’d returned. His face would just...light up as if Lenore was the only thing in the world that mattered.

And Lenore would look at him with a soft, faint smile on her face when he was engrossed in some book or invention.

 

“Sometimes...sometimes that’s a risk you take. Sometimes the people you love hurt you.” Her hands flitted unconsciously past the slight bruises on her neck that she would always carry with her even in death. “Sometimes the people you think love you hurt you. But sometimes...sometimes it can be the most wonderful thing in the world, and they make you the happiest you’ve ever been.” She smiled, a picture of Edgar coming to her mind for a moment.

 

“I don’t deserve to be happy,” Lenore muttered, half to herself. She looked Annabel in the eye, and Annabel saw the tears lurking in her eyes, unshed, but still there. 

 

“I’m not his...dear Lenore. That was the other Lenore. That’s...that’s not me.”

 

Annabel reached across and took Lenore’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. 

“I think you need to ask him about that.”

 

Annabel saw the shock and surprise flash across Lenore’s face. She wished her dear friend would speak with the inventor. 

She knew she wouldn’t.

Not unless…

 

Annabel reached over and gave Lenore a fast but tight hug and then stood up.

“You do deserve to be happy. And I think you can be.”

 

Lenore looked at her bestie with a confused look on her face, but Annabel was already on the way out the door.

 

She had work to do.

 

Lenore was left with her thoughts and the books.

 

When Edgar burst in a few hours later, he was just as shocked to see her as she was to see him.

  
(Lenore couldn’t believe he’d left his study. Edgar couldn’t believe she was in the library with the books.)

(Edgar didn’t know she read.)   
(Which he of course said out loud.)

(Lenore through a book at him in response and stormed out (taking a book with her, which surprised him even more) leaving him to his thoughts and his books.)

 

(He really wished someone would tell him what was going on. It was  _ his _ house, after all.)

 

* * *

Annabel found HG still in the attic working on his machine.

 

(There were wires everywhere connecting all sort of electronic...things.)

(Annabel had no idea what any of them did but now she understood why Lenore sometimes would come down to wherever she was and complain about how there just wasn’t enough space.)

 

HG didn’t notice that Annabel was there. He’d gotten used to Lenore popping in unexpectedly, but she always accompanied her arrival with some sort of greeting (or recently, with some sort of playful jab at him being a nerd.)

 

So when Annabel accidentally knocked over a pile of wires dragging down the contraption it was attached to making a loud sudden noise, HG jumped.

And knocked over another pile of wires and electronics and things that had order in the process.

(Lenore was going to complain about the disorder later he was sure.)

 

“Oh...um. Annabel. How...how can I help you?” He vaguely remembered Lenore telling him at one point that Annabel hated the attic because of spiders and dust so he was genuinely surprised that she had made her way up there on her own (and not just because the smell of smoke and the threat of the house burning down as had happened earlier.)

 

“Well you can start by telling me what on earth was going on earlier.” She gave HG a pointed Look™ and he understood all at once why Lenore could never keep a secret from her best friend.

(If that was how she looked when she was being nice about something, HG didn’t want to see what she looked like when she was angry.)

 

“Oh...well you see we were working and then the time machine...began working again. Quite unexpectedly. I haven’t been able to make it work since...since Lenore arrived in the other machine. But I finally worked it out and figured out that…” He stopped, realizing that Annabel didn’t want the scientific explanation...and while she wouldn’t say it, he knew she wasn’t interested.

“I suppose...I suppose we were...caught up in the moment, so to speak. I’m sure it doesn’t mean...anything,” he finished sadly.

 

“Well I don’t know. I did notice how you look at Lenore when you think no one is looking.” She smirked at the panic that crossed across the inventor’s face. “She doesn’t know. But I think she maybe deserves to know.”

 

HG did what any sensible person would do in this situation.

 

He panicked.

 

“I um...I don’t think...She doesn’t know and of course she wouldn’t know. She doesn’t need to know. She...she, well she doesn’t hate me anymore…I don’t think so at least. She...we’re friends. We’re friends and that’s...that’s okay. It’s what she wants and it’s what’s best...and I would never push for...more.” 

 

“But you still care for her, right?” Annabel pressed, her knowing smile only growing on her face.

 

“Do I still...of course I still care!” HG’s frantic speech continued, becoming more frantic. “She’s...she’s Lenore. And I care very much and...and it’s all I’ve wanted, all I still want. She’s all I want but...but she’s not ready for that. She doesn’t care for me that way...we’ve...talked. She wanted to be friends. And I respect that and if that’s what she wants then I could never ask for more. She’s never….she deserves to be happy and she clearly can’t…”

 

He was interrupted by Annabel grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the attic.

 

* * *

 

Maybe it’s because Annabel is so nice that Lenore doesn’t see it coming.

 

(Annabel was one of those people who is always just so genuinely  _ nice _ to everyone.)

(It was something Lenore admired about her.)

(Except when she wanted her bestie to be annoyed at Edgar with her. Then she admired it...less.)

 

She’s sitting in the study reading a book that is definitely  _ not _ something science-y to help her better understand the newly working time machine when a stunned HG is literally pushed into the study while anxiously and quickly speaking about his work.

 

“Oh no no no. I should be working on perfecting the machine so it doesn’t smoke as much the next time it’s activated…”

 

Lenore notices Annabel behind HG literally doing the pushing...and to Lenore’s surprise, actual shushing.

 

“No. You are going to talk to Lenore. And I mean actually talk. You  _ BOTH _ are going to talk to each other without interruptions or leaving or anything.” She gave Lenore a pointed look that made her want to sink into the cushions of the chair she was sitting on and disappear forever.

 

Annabel turned and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her, leaving the two stunned and embarrassed ghosts to sort out their feelings on their own.

The click of the key in the lock was completely unnecessary - considering, you know,  _ ghost _ \- but so very … Annabel that Lenore had to smile a little.

Despite the circumstances.

Apparently leaving would  _ not _ be an option here. They would have to…talk.

 

* * *

Having heard the commotion down the hall from where he’d been working, Edgar rushed to the study in time to see Annabel determinedly locking the door, and he realized what had happened.

He stared at the door, shocked that Annabel actually locked two  _ ghosts _ in a room. Not just shocked, impressed.

 

“They’re...ghosts. Can’t they just leave?”   
“They won’t.”

(Annabel is very sure of this)

 

“But why…”

“Because they need it, Edgar.”

 

“Oh…” he stared at the door in confusion. “But…”

 

“Come on, Edgar,” Annabel sighed. 

 

* * *

 

Lenore and HG look at the closed door, both shocked and amused in their own ways.

(Of course Annabel would be the one to literally lock them in a room and make them talk about things.)

 

“Well. I guess there goes any hope of me running away from this one.” 

HG laughs slightly at Lenore’s quip. He knows she’s only half-joking. She would run away from this if she could, but they both know better than to go against Annabel when she’s determined about something. She would just continue locking them in rooms until they got sick of it.

 

(Lenore had experienced this firsthand when she’d mysteriously found herself trapped in a space with Edgar multiple times until he’d admitted that he actually did enjoy Lenore bringing him food.)

(Annabel means well. And they all know better than to upset her.)

(Upset Annabel means lots of pointed sighs and glares and comments about “how nice it would be if everyone got along.”)

 

“I suppose we should do what Annabel says. We wouldn’t want a repeat of...what did you call it? The ‘Edgar-ocalypse?’” HG had an amused glint in his eyes as he looked at Lenore. She snorted in amusement. No. That would not be fun for anyone involved.

 

(Edgar had tried to comfort Annabel on a day when she’d asked to be left alone.)

(It hadn’t gone well and had involved Edgar trying increasingly ridiculous ways to get Annabel to stop being mad at him.)

(Lenore had spent weeks cleaning up after the ravens.)

 

They’re silent for a few moments. Neither of them look at the other, and neither know what to say. 

They’d established their tentative friendship, of course, but they hadn’t spent time together in a room where there wasn’t something else to occupy the time. They always had HG’s inventions or his books or Lenore’s cooking to occupy them, and their conversation would flow naturally from there. 

But here? Here there was nothing to do. 

 

Lenore took a deep breath. Annabel had told them that they needed to figure things out. Her conversation she’d had with Annabel flashed through her head, and she knew that unless she said what was on her mind, she was never going to.

Plus she’d always been the type to just say what she was thinking without thinking about it first. This wasn’t a time to start changing her habits.

 

She blurts out what’s in her mind fast enough that she can’t stop herself from doing it. Because if she doesn’t do it now, she might never do it. 

And clearly that hadn’t been working for her. 

And if he was going to reject her and tell her that he just wanted her to be his dear friend, then she might as well know now.

 

“You...you used to call me “my dear Lenore” and you...you stopped. But the other Lenore, the first Lenore...she’s still “your” Lenore. And I’m not, and maybe...maybe I want to be.” She looks down at the floor, unable to meet HG’s gaze. 

She’s scared that she’ll see him there, rejecting her. She’s scared he’ll reject her and tell her that she’s not going to be his dear anything.

The fact that she wants so badly to be scares her more than she’ll ever admit.

(Except to Annabel, who knew anyways. That girl knows more about anyone in this house than they’ll ever care to admit.)

 

HG was taken aback by her words. There had never not been a moment for him where she hadn’t been his dear Lenore. She was always dear. Always.

But of course, he hadn’t told her that. Not after the last time he’d called her “dear” and she’d ran away. Or the times when he’d say it and he would see her flinch, obviously caught up in some sort of memory.

He’d hoped he’d shown her other ways that she was still his dear Lenore.

(Perhaps he should work on being more...obvious and less subtle.)

(Especially since she’d promised to stop running from him.)

 

“You’ve…you’ve never not been dear. Not to anyone in this house, and especially not...not to me.” He knew she was looking at him now and not at the floor and he stayed determined to not look her in the eyes because right now he would lose all of his nerve and never say what he wanted (needed) to say. 

“You’re my dear Lenore, and you have been since that day you arrived. You might not be the Lenore we...I...lost. But you’re Lenore. You’re so much more to me than...than I think you realize. But once I realized how much it hurt you, and how much hurting you hurt me...well, I suppose I stopped.” He looked at her and saw her face, her eyes shining with a combination of hope and despair, and he vowed to never be the cause of the second emotion in her eyes ever again. “I never meant to hurt you, Lenore. I just wanted you to find happiness again. Even...even if that wasn’t with me.” 

 

He looked away from her face again, not wanting to misread things again. He’d done that once and it had left him alone in the library while she ran away from him more upset than he’d ever seen her.

He didn’t want to be hurt again.

He didn’t want to hurt her again.

And he wasn’t sure he could take it if her face held a pained or pitying expression towards him right now.

(Laying one’s heart out on the table, so to speak, was difficult work.)

 

“What…” Lenore’s voice broke through his anxious train of thought “What if I told you...that I wanted that? Like, with you?” 

 

He looked up at her, and where he had been expecting pain he only saw hope. It wasn’t the excited disbelief he’d seen on another Lenore’s face at another time when he’d managed to defy death itself and return to the world of the living, but it was somehow even better. 

Hope on a face where there was usually none.

Enough to cause him to dare to hope himself.

 

“I want to be happy. With you. I think...I think we can be happy again. And I know now that you’re not him. I trust you. I think even when I didn’t want to, I still did, and it drove me crazy. And like, we could make this work. We could start over and pretend I never tried to kill you or anything totally embarrassing like that.” She looked at him now and he could see the amusement in her eyes, but also the vulnerability and the fear. 

Not fear that he would hurt her.

Fear that he would say no. 

Fear that she would lose him.

 

So he did the only rational thing any ghost would do.

(Although, not being in a logical mindset when it came to Lenore of course meant that it probably was  _ not _ the rational thing to do.)

(He found that he didn’t seem to care.)

 

“Well, my  _ dear _ Lenore...perhaps it’s time we’re happy.”

 

It was...cheesy.    
If it had come from Edgar to Annabel, Lenore would have made gagging noises and called it “totally gross.”

(It was okay to be a bit of a hypocrite in this situation.)

(Plus Edgar wasn’t around to judge her for it so she couldn’t be bothered to care.)

(And if the universe was going to give her a chance to finally be happy, well..she wasn’t going to turn  _ that _ down.)

 

Lenore looked at the locked door again, and then back at HG. A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes.

She knew better than to go against Annabel.

But technically...they  _ had _ sorted out their feelings.

By the laws of technicality they could now leave the room.

Plus they’re ghosts. They could literally do whatever they wanted.

 

“How long do you think it’ll take for Edgar and Annabel to come looking for us?”

 

HG smirked. “With Edgar involved? Long enough, I’m sure.”

 

“Well then, professor. I think we should try out that time machine of yours.”

 

* * *

Annabel, of course, knows that the two ghosts have left and gone up to the attic. 

 

(What kind of ghost would she be if she didn’t know how to keep tabs on her two dear friends she’d locked in a room together?)

 

Later, when she hears the time machine turn on, she knows that they must be going together. She smiles. 

 

Her work here was done.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I feel like I'm falling, seriously falling hard for you  
> Oh forever's a long time  
> But far from enough time to spend with you
> 
> I will always be there
> 
> So fall, I'll be behind you  
> I'll be there to guide you when you've lost your way  
> Yeah forever's a long time  
> But far from enough time to spend with you"  
> \--Falling, Oh Gravity

When she had first jumped into the time machine in a moment of reckless thinking, Lenore never in her wildest dreams thought she’d be stepping back into it with HG at her side.

 

Or that they’d be going somewhere on a sort of...date.

 

(He said he was taking her somewhere “majestic and wonderful” and he’d looked rather bashful when he’d asked her if she would let him pick the place they were going.)

(She let him, of course. She couldn’t say no to him, not when he had that small smirk on his face that let her know he was planning something.)

 

(In her mind it totally counted as a date.)

(It caused a sort of...floating sensation to course through her body. It almost made her giggle.)

(Annabel was never going to let her live this one down.)

 

HG could scarcely believe his luck. When Lenore had arrived in the time machine and subsequently dashed his hopes and broken his heart by attacking him and pushing him away, he had accepted that she was different and that he would never have what had once happened between him and the...other Lenore. 

 

(Part of him would always think of her fondly, but the one who was “his” had shifted and now stood in front of him.)

(His Dear Lenore. The thought of her allowing him to call her that now would never cease to fill him with joy.)

 

He had the perfect destination in mind. She would love it...and she would love the shopping even more. 

He knows her well, after all.

 

And then when he looked up at Lenore after he had finished inputting the destination coordinates and she seemed to...flicker...for a moment, his brain spiraled into immediate panic.

 

Lenore saw the panic cross his face, and she quirked an eyebrow at him. 

 

“What, did we forget something, Goggles?” She reached out a hand to grab his hand in a gesture of reassurance…

 

...and her hand passed straight through his.

 

She felt the floating feeling happening again and she closed her eyes in concentration, and then tried to reach out again and this time was able to grab HG’s hand and squeezed it. When she opened her eyes, hoping that this would reassure him, she only saw desperation and panic.

 

And then her hand fell through his (and the console below it).

 

And that’s when HG went into full-panic.

* * *

 

Lenore watched him frantically running calculations and pressing different combinations of buttons on the console, each one causing him to become more panicked. His panicked and frantically desperate look only became worse. She tried to reach out to him again, wanting nothing more to comfort him and she felt herself fading from the world around her.

 

“No...no no not again not  _ again _ !” he shouted frantically as he worked to save her. He’d lost one Lenore. He’d be damned if he’d lose this one too. Not when...not when they’d come so far. Not when they finally had another chance. He remembered how last time she’d just...faded from existence. Faded into nothing.

 

It was happening again.

 

“I won’t lose you. I can’t...I can’t lose you again…” he began muttering to himself, a constant stream of words that only served to break Lenore’s heart.

Flashes of a house that had once been familiar to her, but had brought her so much pain faded in and out.

She began to concentrate. If she could stay corporeal in this world for just a moment longer, she would be able to hang on. 

Just one more moment, that’s all she needed.

 

She’d always joked about never running out of time because, duh, ghost. She had all the time in the world to figure things out. 

But now as she realized her time here was running out, she knew she only had moments left.

And she didn’t want those last moments to be of him frantically trying to save her when they could be spent together.

 

“HG…” she softly placed her hand over his, stilling his moments for a second. He looked up at her and the desperation and pain in his eyes almost made her rethink her entire plan. 

 

He shook off her hand and continued his frantic motions. There had to be a way to save her. He couldn’t lose her. A time traveller running out of time...if he wasn’t feeling so pressed for time he would have seen the irony in the statement. 

He ran through calculations in his head, trying to figure out some way to keep his beautiful ghost here with him. 

He couldn’t lose her again. 

He just  _ couldn’t. _ She seemed so calm, so serene. Perhaps she didn’t know how dire this was. He decided in that split second that he wouldn’t alarm her with such news. 

After all, what use would it be? 

Wasted moments to say those things when he could be using that time to save her.

 

“Herbert George Wells…” Lenore said softly, grabbing his hands and holding them between hers. She met his eyes and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring look. “It’s… it’s like, fate right? I’m not supposed to be here.” She felt tears prick her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. 

She had to be strong. 

She hadn’t been before, but she would now. 

He needed to know that she would be okay. 

 

They would be okay...even if they wouldn’t be okay together.

 

“I...but…” he stuttered. He didn’t have the words. An author out of words and a time traveller out of time...there was a certain poetic nature to it, if he had been one to appreciate that sort of thing. Right now, he most definitely was not.

 

“I’m going to be fine. We...we were never supposed to meet, yeah? Like, life isn’t that perfect. We don’t get to meet our soulmate and then have a happy ending. That’s way too easy and life...well life sucks.” She took a deep, shaky breath and continued. “But you...you showed me I can be happy. That life can be totally happy and perf even after everything sucks. We...we can be happy still.”

She felt herself starting to fade faster and her concentration was starting to wane because it was just  _ so hard  _ to keep concentrating on him and her words and staying in this world at the same time. “You taught me to be happy again. And you taught me...to love again.”

She saw his eyes widen in surprise. She reached up to cup his cheek with her hand. She felt herself completely fading and she pushed the last bit of energy she had into the moment in front of her and leaned in and kissed him.

She had to kiss him at least once or she’d never forgive herself. 

(Forever was a long time to never forgive yourself).

She felt his surprise, and then felt him respond, kissing her back and his hands moving to try to pull her closer, to hold on to her just a moment longer but she felt everything slipping away all at once.

 

And then she was gone.

 

And he was alone.

* * *

 

Lenore found herself in a dining room she knew very well. But it was cold, and dark, and lonely, and there was a layer of dust coating every surface, and she knew at once that she was “home”.

 

It didn’t feel like home anymore. It hadn’t felt like home even before she left.

What was the point of it all?

To leave, to visit that beautiful other world where she still had Annabel and Edgar and … and HG.

Why was she forced back? Why did she have to lose them all over again?

 

She had told HG he made her happy again, that because of him she could be happy.

Sinking to the floor, cold and alone and so far away from anyone who knew or cared about her - she didn’t feel very happy.

And she shouldn’t cry, and there is no help to be found in crying, but nevertheless, she the tears began to well up.

 

But before the first one could even fall; every hair on her skin rises up, every muscle clenches in fear or in fight, and a small voice inside her head that she’s been ignoring for a very long time yells at her to run away.

 

When the voice emerges from a dark corner of the room, she can’t see the speaker - but she knows that voice. 

She knows that voice far too well.

“Well, my  _ dear  _ Lenore. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....in hindsight maybe we should have picked the theme from the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday" for this one.
> 
> (We've had this chapter written from the beginning. It's literally the first idea we came up with.)
> 
> We would say we're sorry for the angst.
> 
> But we're not.
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTES:  
> Think of this chapter as the end of part 1...a mid-season finale, if you will. We're taking a slight hiatus from the fic so Amelia can finish her very-important-needs-to-be-finished-in-order-to-graduate paper for school. In the meantime, Michelle will be posting some "interludes" that are scenes that take place throughout the fic that either didn't make it to finalized chapters or are scenes that have happened "off camera" of sorts...so there will still be updates, just not a continuation just yet.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and enjoying this fic!


	12. Interlude One--Annabel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first interlude gives us some insight into the mind of Annabel as she copes with her best friend moving on to the other side at the beginning of our story.
> 
> (Reminder, we are on a hiatus on new things at the moment, but will be posting "bits in between" chapters giving everyone some insight into what our lovely characters are doing when the metaphorical "camera" isn't pointed at them in the fic!)

Every since she was a little girl, Annabel only had one constant in her life.

Lenore.

They’d bonded together as children at a party their parents were having. They’d snuck upstairs after stealing half the sweets from the food table.

(Well. Lenore had done the stealing. Annabel had fretted that they would get caught and be in trouble.)

 

Hiding in the closet upstairs away from where any of the grown-ups could find them, they feasted on their spoils and decided they would be best friends.

At every party after that, they would do the same thing. Lenore would steal the best of the desserts from the table while Annabel frantically played look-out and then the two of them would sneak upstairs and talk and eat.

 

As teenagers their conversations about hopes and dreams began to shift to what their parents wanted of them. They talked about which boys were interested in them...and which boys they were interested in. The two didn’t always align.

(“But Annababe he’s like...totes boring. I don’t care that he’s rich or whatever. I cannot marry someone who puts me to sleep. That’s hella lame.”)

 

And then Lenore met Guy DeVere the “love of her life” as she’d called him. She began spending all her time with him instead of with Annabel. Annabel had tried to be happy for her.

And then Lenore had missed a party to be with him leaving Annabel to fend for herself amongst relatives and family friends she hadn’t spoken to in years because she’d always run off with Lenore at parties. She didn’t know these people.

She’d written a letter to Lenore immediately following asking what had happened.

 

It caused a fight. Their biggest yet. Lenore had marched herself over to Annabel’s home and they had it out. Lenore had rushed out crying and Guy had taken her home after he’d shown up looking for her.

 

Annabel missed the wedding. She told herself that Lenore wouldn’t want her there.

Lenore had specifically asked her not to come if she didn’t approve.

So she hadn’t.

(It wasn’t that she didn’t approve. Guy was a sweetheart. But Annabel knew that Lenore didn’t want her there.)

And then Lenore died.

 

Annabel hid in her room for a month.

 

And then a week after she’d ventured out, Lenore showed up on her doorstep.

 

Annabel had vowed in that instant that she’d never let anything come between them again. Even death couldn’t stop them.

 

So when HG had delivered the news that Lenore had simply...faded away, she felt that despair and heartbreak from when she’d originally lost her come back with a vengeance.

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

She’d hidden in her room for a week until she had no more tears left to cry. She was vaguely aware of Edgar and HG’s attempts to comfort her.

She didn’t want them.

She wanted her best friend.

 

(They were supposed to be “besties forever.” When Annabel had returned as a ghost it was the deal they’d made. Annabel hadn’t thought the world could be so cruel.)

(That’s a lie. She knew the world could be that cruel. Why else would it have taken her best friend from her in the first place?)

 

She blamed everything. Everyone. She blamed Eddie for the dinner party and killing everyone. She blamed fate for giving her a fate worse than death...to be stuck here for all eternity only to watch Edgar grow old without her best friend to comfort her. She blamed Edgar...she blamed HG...she blamed Lenore.

 

She blamed herself above all.

 

(She forgave her friends. She forgave fate. But she couldn’t forgive Eddie. And she wouldn’t forgive herself.)

 

As the days passed the pain dulled. It still hurt, but she was able to get up from the bed and sit by the window instead. And then the chair.

 

And then finally she was able to leave the room.

 

Lenore wouldn’t want her wallowing away in the room. She’d say something about how doing that was Edgar’s job since he was the one who was “totally emo” or something.

 

Annabel smiled fondly at the memory of her best friend.

 

She apologized to HG and gave the poor man a hug. He looked just as broken as she and Edgar did.

(She made a mental note to sit down and talk with him about Lenore at some point. She had seen the looks. She had seen the start of something beautiful between them...and now she saw the aftermath in his face.)

 

(Now she understood what Lenore had meant when she’d told her that Edgar had looked lost without her.)

 

They would be okay. They would have to be. She determined that she would, from here on out, be the person to make things okay in the house.

  
She owed Lenore that much, she supposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, as always!


	13. Interlude Two--Edgar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into the mind of one Edgar Allan Poe and dealing with Lenore being gone. Edgar isn't good at feelings. That's why he writes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for sticking through this hiatus. Hopefully soon(ish) we'll be back to continuing our adventure with everyone's favorite evil smol bean!

_ “Friends. Friends is the word you’re looking for.” _

 

Edgar had never had friends. He preferred to be alone. If he was alone then he could write in peace and not have to deal with anyone else interrupting. Or talking to him. Or doing anything that involved bothering him in any way shape or form.

 

Of course, meeting Annabel Lee had changed that. For the first time in his life he found himself actively seeking out another human being.

He hated it.

But he also...loved it.

 

And then Annabel told him that her friend needed a place to stay. And he couldn’t say no to Annabel. He could never say no to Annabel.

Anything for Annabel.

 

And so Lenore had moved into his attic.

Or more like...she looked at the house, told him it was “totally emo” and called “dibs” on the attic. 

This all happened in the span of 30 seconds and he hadn’t had a chance to tell her no.

 

Writing became more of a chore with a persistent ghost asking him what he was up to at all hours of the day.

 

He didn’t ask for this. Why was he doing this?

 

Annabel. 

(And if it meant that Annabel would occasionally visit to see Lenore, well he wasn’t complaining.)

(Even if Lenore would forcibly remove him from the room every time he tried to join them.) 

(“She doesn’t want to read your emo poem about ravens, weirdo.”)

 

And then that damned dinner party happened. 

The weeks that followed before they figured out how to bring Annabel back were the worst of his life. Yet through them...somehow...he survived. Lenore had all but force fed him food (not soup though. Never soup. Never again.) and forced him to occasionally leave his study.

They had an unspoken agreement. Something close to a friendship that they hadn’t had before.

That’s what happens after most of the people you know are murdered at a dinner party you host.

 

When Annabel had returned (in a ceremony he had  _ refused  _ to take part in because he was terrified it wouldn’t work) he couldn’t believe that their luck had finally turned around.

And HG showed back up as well, but Edgar hadn’t figured out why that was important. At least not yet.

 

(It took Annabel dragging him out of the room one day after he’d interrupted HG and Lenore working on some sort of contraption thing that he didn’t quite understand for him to understand why Lenore had been so happy about HG returning.)

(It may have also taken Annabel specifically telling him the reason why Lenore was happy but he liked to think he would have figured it out on his own anyways. He was a very observant person, after all.)

 

And then one day HG had come downstairs and told them that Lenore was...gone.

 

Edgar of course felt sadness, but also anger. How dare she just  _ leave? _ They’d been through too much for her to just be...gone.

Annabel was inconsolable, which only served to make him more angry. How could she leave and make Annabel so...so sad. 

He wrote several strongly worded letters to Lenore that he burned in the fireplace before they could accidentally be found by anyone.

He cursed her. He yelled at her. He berated her.

(All through his writing of course.)

 

He would never admit it out loud to anyone, of course, but he also missed her. Lenore had been his only companion for so long that the house somehow felt...empty, despite the presence of two other ghosts.

 

Annabel emerged from her room and took over Lenore’s duties of making sure dinner was ready. Food trays began to appear outside his study again when he was working, and as time passed, the pain at seeing them lessened. 

 

(Annabel didn’t tell him, but she knew about his letters and that he burned them and that he missed Lenore. She knew better than to bring it up.)

 

HG asked him one night after dinner if Edgar wanted him to leave and take his inventions elsewhere. Edgar sputtered and searched for the right words to tell him that he was welcome to stay. HG had become as much a part of this house as Lenore had, and losing him felt as if they’d lose the last bit of Lenore that remained.

 

Edgar wasn’t ready to lose that, even if he would never admit it out loud.

 

Some thoughts were best left to be his own.


	14. Interlude Three--Lenore, HG and Annabel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small snippets that happen after Lenore arrives in the new world and how old habits die hard.

There were days Lenore forgot that she was in this new world.

 

And then she would go down to the kitchen and  _ he  _ would be there with his goggles on his forehead working on making his stupid morning tea.

To his credit, he usually left the kitchen soon after she entered.

 

(There had been the first time when he’d tried to make conversation and ask her what she would be making for Edgar this morning. She’d glared at him until he’d nervously mentioned that he should go check on a machine he’d left running and he’d left.)

(It was better that way.)

 

But if there was one thing Lenore quickly realized it was that no matter what world she found herself in, Edgar Allan Poe was incapable of feeding himself.

 

And thus she found herself in a kitchen that was familiar yet...not...cooking food for Edgar.

 

She briefly wondered if this Edgar would also enjoy her soup.

 

But when she tried making soup, there was this look of...panic on Edgar’s face. Panic and fear and a thousand other emotions Lenore did not realize the man was even capable of feeling.

 

(Later, Annabel explained that the soup brought back memories of the dinner party and he hadn’t been able to eat any soup since.)

 

(Lenore tried to ignore that the inventor had eaten the leftover soup without question. She also ignored his comment that it was “rather good.” His opinion didn’t matter.)

 

Lenore settled into a routine, much like the routine in the world she’d left before...everything had happened. She made meals in the kitchen, the familiar task lending comfort in its simplicity. Sometimes Annabel joined her, but she really just sat and talked, having found herself to be quite useless in actually helping with any of the actual cooking.

 

Lenore would be cleaning flour off every surface of the kitchen for the next three months after Annabel’s last attempt at “helping.”

 

(She’d dropped a bag of flour and it had exploded. Everywhere.)

(After their giggles had subsided, Edgar had come down to find the source of the commotion. He’d run away quickly after Annabel and Lenore tried to get flour on his jacket.)

 

Edgar, of course, did not thank her for the meals. She took the empty dishes outside his study as his version of thanks.

 

So long as she avoided the inventor...life would be okay. She could make this work.

 

She had to.

 

* * *

 

HG knew she didn’t see it, but he always made sure that her favorite ingredients to cook with were always in full supply. She wouldn’t like it if she knew. He’d been threatened by her enough in the past few weeks to know to stay away.

 

Annabel, of course, knew that he was doing this. 

 

If Lenore ever asked she was going to tell her it was her.

 

HG did not know that Annabel had any idea. The man was smart, but at the same time, a bit daft. 

  
It was best if HG and Lenore didn’t know that she knew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking through us through this hiatus! Only a few more interludes to go before we pick back up where we left!


	15. Interlude Four--Lenore and Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Lenore...the original Lenore...moved on she found that the afterlife wasn't that bad after all.

The afterlife was...well...pretty awesome. 

 

Lenore had, of course, been said to leave her friends. Even Edgar.

(But don’t tell him that.)

She was sad to leave HG before...whatever it was between them could build.

The few months they’d had hadn’t been enough time.

 

She knew he would move on. He was a smart cookie.

She was most worried about Annabel. Her dear sweet Annabel. They’d been friends since childhood and she knew that leaving would hurt her the most.

She’d underestimated HG and Edgar’s abilities to take care of her bestie. And her bestie’s ability to take care of everyone else, it seemed.

 

Sometimes she’d muster up enough energy to look in on her friends. Never enough to rejoin them...more like...looking through a mirror at them. Which was fine. It was totally fine. She...wanted them to be happy. To move on. Going back for a few minutes would just make that harder on everyone.

 

Plus then she’d have to give up Guy. Again.

 

It was...weird. One minute she’d been missing HG and Edgar and Annabel and the next, she’d heard a familiar voice calling her name. And then there he was. Guy. Dear, sweet Guy. Love-of-her-life-that-week Guy.

It seemed that fate had brought them back together. 

 

She was totally okay with that.

 

* * *

 

Life...well...afterlife is pretty great, Lenore learns. 

 

Guy is just as sweet as she remembered and she finds herself falling for him all over again.

It’s totally romantic like something out of one of her romance novels. Lovers long separated by death finally reunited. It’s totally perfect.

 

She still likes to look back at Annabel and Edgar and HG. She feels bad for leaving them. They all seem...so sad. It’s not fair for her to be happy and them to be so sad. She says just that to Guy, and he smiles at her and tells her she’ll figure something out. She always does.

 

(Sometimes she thinks Guy has too much faith in her. He’s a lot like Annabel in that way.)

 

And then she’s reading some sort of science-y type book one day and it hits her.

 

(Okay, it’s not exactly science. HG would probably tell her that astrology and spiritual connections have nothing to do with science. But it has big words and sounds important. Science.)

 

There might somewhere be another version of her in another life. Maybe that version of her could use her help too.

She of course doesn’t anticipate her actions impacting her friends in quite the way they do. But this other...her...was just so sad. 

 

And if there’s one thing no Lenore should be, it’s sad. 

 

So she fixes it. And causes more problems, and those problems cause her to watch her old friends more and more, much to the worry of Guy.

And then one day she’s so worried and focused that she steps through and she’s back in her old world.

At least then she can try to fix some of the problem she caused.

 

Later when she tells Guy about it he kisses her forehead and tells her that he knew she could figure it out.

 

She asks him if he’d ever help her if she needed more...power to stay longer. 

He of course, says yes. Anything for his fair Lenore.

 

She smiles and hopes that her friends figure things out and that she never has to step back in. It’s like reopening an old wound and it hurts, even so far removed as she may be.

 

But it’s nice to know she can still help them even from beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the continued patience and support! This sort of counts as new material, right? RIGHT?


	16. Interlude Five--HG Wells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One HG Wells has some thoughts.
> 
> But it's not the HG Wells you were expecting.

When he first arrived back in the world he couldn’t believe it.

There was no way that he was being given a second chance at life. A second chance at what he wanted.

 

He soon realized of course that this wasn’t really a second chance at life. He realized that when he tried to pick up his contraptions from where they had fallen when he died and his hands passed through them.

 

So he was a ghost, it seemed. He would need to run some experiments on that later. But first, he needed to see where everyone else was. 

He remembered them being dead. He remembered their deaths.

After all, he had caused them. He smiled, thinking of how his revenge plan had succeeded.

 

Almost succeeded. His smile faltered as he remembered the ghost woman and the wine glass pressed against his throat. His hands felt his neck and he felt the scar just barely there where she had cut him open.

 

It was a shame, really. Had she been more willing he certainly would have enjoyed the company. The woman was easy on the eyes, and their banter before she had figured out the murders had been enjoyable, if a bit dull. She just had to ruin it all. 

Together they could have been unstoppable. 

 

He realized soon that she had disappeared as well. He had half-expected to find her still here crying over the bodies of her dead loved ones. Pathetic.

Instead he found the house empty and covered in dust. 

He also finds his time machine gone. So that’s where she’d gone.

 

He wonders if she’s trying to change the past. Change what happened.

Perhaps that’s why he’s back as a ghost.

But no...there’s still blood on the ground. And he still has the scar from where she killed him.

Either way, it seems he’s back. And while he’s alone and his revenge plot has succeeded (after all, they were all dead)...he’s now stuck.

 

He had tried to leave. 

And then found himself abruptly thrust back into the house. It seemed that his fate was tied to this house...to this place. 

He did not want to be trapped. Not when he now had the potential to take back his reputation and make others who had laughed at him pay for what they’d done.

But still, he was stuck.

 

He briefly wondered if Lenore had been stuck as well. Perhaps that was why his time machine had disappeared.

No matter. He would figure it out. He always did. A brilliant and scientific brain such as his was never stuck for long.

 

He wasn’t sure how much time passed. He had found enough of his tools and supplies that he was able to start crafting new devices...hoping that one of them would allow him to eventually leave this dusty house and move on with his life. Afterlife.

He needed a test subject. 

He didn’t want to risk running the test on himself. He might be dead, but he still wasn’t entirely sure how it worked and he would rather not risk everything. Again.

 

Maybe there would be other ghosts roaming the halls of this house. He had, after all, killed many people in this house.

And if there weren’t well...maybe there would be a way to bring more back.

 

The experiments continued.

 

And then one day he heard a disturbance downstairs. The sound of...a person. 

And the sound of tears.

It was quite distracting.

 

He planned to tell the person to leave. Or perhaps kill them. He’d make the decision when he got downstairs. 

He was not, however, prepared for the sight that would greet him.

 

A white dress...a wedding dress...and the woman wearing the dress. 

Perhaps it was time for his luck to change.

He still had one person left to kill it seemed.

 

But of course, he needed her.

Someone had to test his new device to see if it worked and he wasn’t going to try it on himself. If it didn’t work that would be drastic.

Perhaps it would work on her.

 

So he approaches the other ghost, trying not to laugh at her tears. 

Silly woman. Tears won’t bring back your stupid friends.

 

He wishes he had some way to immortalize the shock and fear and anger on her face when he speaks to her. It’s almost too easy to set her off once more.

 

“Well, my  _ dear _ Lenore. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that....we've come full circle. Which can only mean one thing...yes, everyone, we are officially done with the hiatus that wasn't a hiatus. New chapters will be coming soon and a continuation of our story where we left off with poor Lenore being dragged away. Are you excited yet? We are. Although given past chapters that might scare you more than anything....
> 
> Thanks again for all the support! We really hope you like what's coming next!


	17. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When I see you cry  
> What I'd give to hold you  
> But my hands are tied  
> So I watch you cry"  
> \--Try, Jeremy Jordan and Michael Mott

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now finally the adventure continues! As you may remember, last time we left our Dear Lenore she had come face to face with a face she had thought long-gone.

“Well, my  _ dear _ Lenore. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here again.”

 

If she had a heart it would have stopped in that moment. She had learned to trust that voice, learned to love that voice, even. But this voice was different. It contained malice and anger and things that were so unbecoming of that voice.

 

Lenore stood up and spun around and came face to face with the familiar face of her inventor.

 

Except he wasn’t hers. This was wrong. This was all wrong. She had killed him. It seemed like ages ago now but she remembered it all. Pushing the stem of the glass against his skin and then killing him…

She felt herself begin to shake and she silently willed herself to keep it together. He couldn’t see her break. Not again. HG...the other HG.  _ Her _ HG...he would want her to be strong.

 

“You…” she felt the anger rising. “You can’t. You’re dead...I…”

 

“Killed me?” he interrupted her, scoffing at her...taunting her. “Yes, well my dear you did try. However it seems that something has brought me back. I first thought that perhaps you had changed the timeline somehow, what with taking  _ my _ time machine and all. But it seems that instead I am still dead.” He laughed, causing Lenore to flinch. “It seems that fate has drawn us back together once more, my dear.”

 

Lenore hadn’t flinched at those words in months. 

 

And now it was as if no time had passed. But now...now they caused anger instead of fear.

 

“You don’t get to call me ‘dear.’ I was never your dear  _ anything _ . Not after you killed them.”

 

The man smirked at her. “Well,  _ my dear _ , you would have done the same if you were in my position. We may be different people, but we would certainly do  _ anything _ to get what we want. Isn’t that why you stole my machine? Tried to change time, hm? It’s a shame you didn’t bring it back with you. We could have done  _ so  _ much more.”

 

Lenore lunged at the other man. She had a flash of memory from a time not so long ago when she’d done the same thing to a different HG...an HG who didn’t deserve to be attacked. One who had shown her nothing but kindness and forgiveness.

 

The hurt and pain only served to fuel her more.

 

And then she passed right through him and found herself on the floor. She heard laughter behind her. Sinister. 

 

“Well, I can’t say I didn’t see that coming.” The man taunted her. “My dear, do you think I’d fall for that so easily?”

 

Lenore glared at him as she picked herself up. 

It seemed that her new version of hell included this...man...as a ghost to torment her for all eternity. 

She couldn’t even call him by his name.

That name belonged to another man. Not this man.

 

HG chuckled at the look of disdain on the woman’s face. It was far too much fun to rile her up and make her angry. He just needed her to get close again and perhaps he could test his new invention on her. He twisted the gadget around in his hands, making sure it was positioned correctly so that the next time she tried to get close (and he suspected she would) he could perform the test.

 

And if the test happened to remove her from existence, well...he wouldn’t be too broken up about it.

 

“My my, Lenore. We certainly have gotten feisty. Wherever did you run off to with  _ my  _ machine that would possess you to be so angry? Surely you can’t still be mad about that party. That was ages ago...water under the bridge, what have you.” He smirked as he saw the anger and hurt flash through her eyes...but there was something else there. Some sort of desperation that wasn’t there the last time he’d seen the woman.

 

“I didn’t run anywhere. I tried to stop YOU.” Lenore’s voice rose and she found herself screaming at the other man. “I wanted to save all of them because you  _ KILLED THEM. _ They’re dead and you killed them.” She found her old mantra coming back and she felt the tears bubbling beneath the surface and she willed them to stay away for just a bit longer. There would be time to cry, time to grieve...later. 

“They’re dead and you killed them. And I tried to go back to stop it...and then your machine took me to another place. Another  _ world _ . Everyone was alive and happy and I was happy for once and then I’m ripped back here? You can’t  _ TELL _ me that  _ YOU  _ didn’t plan this. You just have to win. You have to make sure I’m miserable no matter where I am!”

 

HG was stunned. He honestly didn’t think the woman had it in her.

 

“Oh my dear..”

 

“Stop. Calling. Me. That.” Lenore hissed. “I’m not your dear. I never was. Only H…” she stopped herself realizing what she was about to say. 

 

“Only who?” HG quirked his eyebrow at her. “Only...H?” Realization dawned on him like a bolt of lightning. Of course. If she was in another world where everyone was alive then certainly there had to be… “Oh my, Lenore. Was there another version of...me?” The look of shock on her face confirmed it. 

 

And then he saw the flash of hurt in her eyes again.

 

Being a smart man, he began to put the pieces together. He could be wrong but there was only one way to find out.

 

“Oh my dear...if you had only stayed here you would have grown to love me in time as well.”

 

He almost feels bad for her when he slams the device into her chest as she lunges towards him in anger.

 

Almost.

 

Lenore collapsed to the ground in pain. She didn’t think she could feel pain anymore. She was a ghost. She died. She distinctly remembered dying and the pain that came with it. She didn’t think it was possible to feel that kind of pain again.

 

HG knelt next to the woman and pulled the device off to check the readings. It still wasn’t enough. He began tweaking it for the second attempt, knowing that he only had one more chance while she was still incapacitated from the first. She would be expecting it now.

 

“My dear...if there was another version of me in that world then surely there was another version of you, hm? You realize you’re just a replacement to them. Just a substitute for the Lenore they know and love...and lost.” He glanced at Lenore and saw the fury building in her eyes but also saw her struggling to get up, the effects of the device were still making themselves known. 

“You know, you’re not a replacement to me, Lenore. He loved her first, you know. I only have you. I could only ever have you. You would never be a replacement to me. Nothing can kill us here. We’re immortal. Invincible. We could do whatever we want in this world.”

 

“We can’t even leave the grounds.” Lenore growled at him, struggling to stand up.

 

“Oh my dear, can’t we?”

 

He almost feels bad for trying the device a second time when she collapses to the ground, unconscious.

 

* * *

 

Only a few moments had passed when Annabel heard the time machine in the attic once more. She sighed and put her book down, knowing that it fell once again to her to do damage control.

(Seriously, she had just really started reading and now this again? She was not above re-locking the two ghosts in a room again and forcing them to talk. Perhaps after she smacked them upside the head.)

 

But when she enters the attic she finds HG. Alone. He’s sitting next to the machine and he looks...lost. Broken. She had only seen that look on his face one other time...when Lenore had…

 

“HG?” she tentatively reached out to him. He looked up at her and she saw the tears staining his face.

 

“She’s…” He took a shaky breath and cleared his throat, trying again. “She’s gone...I...I couldn’t…” 

 

Annabel’s heart sank. They had just gotten her back. To have the universe take Lenore away again...it was cruel. 

(But if Annabel Lee knew anything, it was that the universe could definitely be cruel.)

 

“I couldn’t save her.” HG whispers...Annabel is sure he is saying it more to himself than to her.

 

Annabel sat down next to HG on the floor (in the attic. With the spiders.) and awkwardly patted his arm. Had it been Lenore she would have thrown her arms around her...but this was HG. And she wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Lenore would know.

Annabel felt the tears prick her eyes again. How could the universe give her back her best friend only to take her away again?

 

And soon Annabel felt anger rising within her. 

This wasn’t fair. 

They were all supposed to have forever.

That was what happens when you and your best friend die and come back as ghosts. You’re supposed to get forever.

It wasn’t  _ fair. _

They had to fix it. They could...they could...

 

Abruptly Annabel stood up. She reached down and pulled HG up with her. She had a look of determination and anger in her eyes and HG found himself taking a step back from its intensity.

 

“We have to get her back.” Annabel all but hissed. “You’re an inventor. Invent something. We are  _ not _ losing her. Not again. She’s in her home world and she’s alone and I’m not letting her stay there. We are saving her.”

 

HG didn’t even try to stop her as she pulled him from the room.

 

* * *

A pair of tear stained eyes watched the pair, unbeknownst to either of them. The figure pulled away from the scene and turned around.

 

“Guy...we have to help them.”

 

The other figure took her hand in his and kissed it softly. “Of course, my lovely Lenore.”


	18. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And I took you by the hand  
> And we stood tall,  
> And remembered our own land,  
> What we lived for."  
> After the Storm, Mumford and Sons

Every attempt he and Annabel had made to try to replicate what happened in the time machine when Lenore was ripped from them was met with the same results.

That is to say, they ended back in the attic. 

Every time.

Annabel had never seen the man as angry and frustrated. HG was usually so...calm. 

But as yet another instrument met its untimely end against the far wall of the attic, she began to realize the extent of his feelings for Lenore...and how losing her a second time was tearing him apart.

It was tearing her apart, too. 

But it fell to her to be strong. It always did.

(Living with Edgar taught you to just...go with it and figure out how to fix things.)

(Just once, though, she wanted someone to fix something for her.)

 

And so Annabel continued to push HG to make changes to the machine, try different combinations. There had to be a way that would work. There had to be something they were missing.

But every time, the time machine landed back in the attic and a dejected HG emerged.

(Annabel was starting to lose hope but she couldn’t. She had to be strong.)

 

They had to be missing something.

 

* * *

From a world beyond the veil a pair of ghosts sat, watching. Waiting.

All HG needed to do was hit just the right frequency…

He was close. Only a few more tweaks and his power would match theirs...and then they could help him.

 

“He won’t give up will he?” The man asked the woman.

 

The woman smiled wryly. “He’s too stubborn. And he knows if the science worked once, it will again.” Her smile died on her lips however as she watched the inventor collapse outside his time machine with tears in his eyes again while she watched Annabel try to urge him to keep trying. “Come on, goggles. Try it again,” she muttered at him, silently willing him to get back in the time machine.

 

And then Annabel pushed him up off the floor and back into the machine telling him that he had to keep trying. 

 

“Thanks, Annababe.” Lenore whispered.

 

It was time to send HG to save his Lenore.

 

* * *

HG had reluctantly stepped back into the machine.

Well. More so that he was pushed back into the machine by an insistent Annabel...and he knew better than to argue with Annabel once she’d made her mind up.

He changed the settings again and tried again.

He felt that it was all in vain...trying again and again and again and never producing the same results.

He was a man of science. He knew that there had to be some way to reproduce the results...but being a man of science also made him acutely aware that one of the factors that had caused it the last time wasn’t here.

  
She wasn’t here.

His Lenore…

 

But then all of a sudden the machine shook uncharacteristically and he was flung to the floor with the motion. 

 

And then it stopped.

HG stepped out of the machine into a house that seemed so familiar and yet at the same time...foreign. 

It was still Edgar’s house.

And he was somehow still in the attic.

But Annabel was gone.

It must have worked...somehow.

 

He shook off his initial shock and rushed downstairs, finding Lenore crumpled at the base of the stairs. He didn’t realize he was shouting her name until a voice that sounded so eerily familiar that he couldn’t believe it responded instead.

 

“Oh she won’t be bothering us. It’s time you and I had a chat I think, hm?”

 

He spun around and found himself face to face with….himself.

 

(Lenore fleeing from him, her flinches when he spoke to her...her insistence that he was evil somehow… it all finally made sense.)

(Of course, he’d known for a while now. But coming face to face with it was...disconcerting to say the least.)

 

“Ah, I see you already know who I am. Or at least who she told you I am.” 

 

HG prided himself on not being a violent man, but in that moment what he wanted more than anything was to wipe the smirk off the other man’s face.

 

“I know who you are. And what you did. To her...and to them.” HG spat the words out at the other man, hoping to quiet him with them, but instead the other man began to laugh. 

(How could he laugh about such things?)

 

“Oh you mean those who laughed at me? Who told me I could never make anything of my inventions? Certainly you know what it’s like to have your inventions mocked to your face. How infuriating it is when they just don’t understand. How you wish you could  _ make _ them see that you’re no fool. But they still laugh and laugh and  _ laugh. _ ” His own laughter turned sardonic. “Except for her. She didn’t laugh. Our  _ dear _ Lenore never laughed…”   
  


“Don’t...don’t call her that. You...you…”

 

“What? Have I not earned the right? After all, you do know she was fond of me first, right?”

 

HG felt the anger rising inside him. “You don’t deserve to call her that. She was never yours.”

 

The other man laughed again. “Oh but she was. For a moment in time she believed me, and she was mine. Doesn’t that just  _ hurt _ ?”

 

HG prided himself on not being a violent person.

But in that moment, he lunged for the other man and found himself passing straight through him onto the floor.

 

“Funny. She tried that, too.” the man chuckled, but the sound grated on HG’s ears and it made him want nothing more than to figure out a way to be rid of this twisted version of himself. 

“So trusting...so easily manipulated. So easy to  _ break. _ Oh...but of course, you know that, don’t you? She trusts  _ you _ even when her mind screams at her to run away. She thinks she  _ loves  _ you. She doesn’t love you. She loves what she thinks you to be.”

 

HG realized that the other man had dropped a device on the ground in his moment of becoming incorporeal. He wasn’t sure entirely what it did, but he was fairly certain it was what was responsible for Lenore being collapsed on the ground next to him.

 

In a moment of bravery or stupidity, he grabbed the device and rammed it into the neck of the other man.

 

He only took a small bit of pleasure at seeing the other man fall to the ground in pain.

But if he could feel pleasure at his pain...then what kind of monster was he capable of being?

Maybe they weren’t as different as he’d hoped.

Maybe had the circumstances been different he would have traveled a similar path.

 

Could he find himself to be so cruel?

 

But before he could think more on what had happened, he heard Lenore stirring from where she had collapsed.

 

“Lenore!”

 

He silently added the look of fear Lenore had on her face at the sound of his voice to his now-growing list of reasons why he hated this alternate version of himself.

This had to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your patience and support!


	19. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So open your eyes and see  
> The way our horizons meet  
> And all of the lights will lead  
> Into the night with me  
> And I know these scars will bleed  
> But both of our hearts believe  
> All of these stars will guide us home"  
> -Ed Sheeran, "All of the Stars"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are so sorry for the delay! Real life happened for both of us and this week was the first time either one of us could really sit down to write and work on this. Hopefully this chapter makes it worth it?

The pain hit her first.

She couldn’t understand how a ghost could still feel pain or still be hurt.

But that was what this man did. He found ways to hurt her. To hurt everyone.

 

And then Lenore opened her eyes and she felt her body seize in fear as she saw him standing over her. She tried to move herself away but found her limbs unable to move and what little movement she could make was excruciatingly painful.

 

(Is this how she would die? Alone and afraid and away from everyone she cared about?)

(Was this her penance for not stopping him sooner? Was this her payment for still taking his life?)

 

And then he leaned down next to her and she saw his face. 

And she realized. 

 

He’d come back for her.

 

The fear in the eyes. The underlying spark of caring instead of hatred. The desperation she’d seen not long ago as he struggled to keep her with him.

 

She tried to talk. 

She couldn’t. Everything hurt. 

 

Her ears rang and she saw his mouth moving but she couldn’t make out the words. She could only see his fear, his anger, his desperation.

 

She felt his hand caress her face slowly and she tried again to reach out to him.

 

She failed.

 

He stood back up, placing himself between her and the other man, who seemed to be...getting up from the ground? Lenore didn’t know how long she’d been out of it. Clearly long enough that she had missed something. 

 

The other figure stood back up. 

She squinted and made out his form across the room, taunting them both. 

 

This was nothing like those romance novels she used to read where the man showed up to heroically save the woman.

(Not that Lenore needed saving. She totally had it handled.)

Those novels didn’t mention the fear or uncertainty.

Or the part where you’re all literally ghosts. And one of you has an evil-psycho alternate universe self who’s hellbent on making you suffer.

Yeah. They didn’t mention that part.

 

And then before Lenore can stop him, HG… her HG...is rushing towards the other man, who immediately becomes incorporeal and the other passes through him. 

 

“You just don’t LEARN do you?” The other man snickered and taunted them both. “You’re both  _ pathetic,  _ you realize that? Trying so desperately to cling onto the hope that you could love each other. That you could be  _ happy. _ But she would laugh at you eventually, you know. Just like all the others. She would laugh. She would break your heart just like everyone else did.”

 

Lenore tried to call out but it was too late and she watched the other man picked up the devices and turned it on her scientist. 

 

His scream would be something that would haunt her for years to come.

 

“And you,  _ my dear _ ...you will watch him suffer and then perhaps I’ll bring you with me when I leave. Or perhaps I’ll leave you here to be trapped for all eternity. After all, this device I’ve created when used properly will allow one to leave the grounds of this wretched place...but only if I allow it.” She watched him look at the device in his hands, and then back at her. “Well, I just don’t think I can allow that, my dear. I’ve worked too hard for you to stop me from achieving what I want.”

 

Lenore watched in horror as he fiddled with the machine. She wasn’t entirely sure what the device was capable of besides pain, but she knew enough to be afraid.

 

And she was powerless to stop him. She desperately searched for HG. Her HG. She at least wanted to see him one last time before everything went black again.

 

But he wasn’t on the floor anymore. He was...gone.

 

Lenore closed her eyes and waited. She tried to think of how happy she had been in that other world with her friends who weren’t the friends she’d known...but who at the same time were still the same friends she’d always had.

 

When Lenore had died the first time, back when she’d been sick, she didn’t have the whole “life flash before your eyes” moment. She just had pain and tiredness...and then nothing.

Maybe it was because her life hadn’t really started until she’d died.

Maybe it was because now she felt like there was more to leave behind.

 

Annabel would be fine. Edgar would be fine. They had each other. HG...wherever he was. He would be fine. He couldn’t be dead. Lenore refused to believe it.

 

She heard the machine whirring up, a whining pitch that was building into an almost painful sound that would have normally made her cringe and cover her ears.

Now she embraced it...as long as she could still hear it, the end hadn’t come….

 

And then there was a crash.

And the sound of sparks and electricity.

And a scream. 

Two screams.

 

And Lenore opened her eyes. 

 

* * *

 

When he’d been thrown to the floor by the contraption his other self had created, HG learned that ghosts could, in fact, still feel pain.

It was an odd sensation. He knew he couldn’t logically  _ die _ again. Yet this felt just like that. It felt like dying.

Or what he supposed dying would feel like if one died from some sort of painful contraption.

His own experience with death was, after all, somewhat limited by his own experience.

 

If this other man was indeed like him in almost every way, then perhaps he had discovered a way to eliminate ghosts from existence. 

That thought terrified HG.

He wasn’t worried about himself being eliminated from existence. As a man of science, he was actually quite curious about the possibility and how it could happen.

(Not enough to build a device to do the deed, he wasn’t a psychopath.)

 

He was, however, worried about Lenore. His Lenore. 

He had only been hit by the device the one time. It looked like she had been hit multiple times, and for much longer than he had been. 

Seeing her on the floor in a crumpled heap awakened an anger he didn’t realize he had possessed. 

 

HG prided himself on being a man of science. A man with a rational brain who thought things through to their logical conclusion instead of acting on impulse. 

And then he’d met Lenore. 

And lost her.

And met a different Lenore.

And then lost her too.

 

He’d be damned if he’d lose her a third time.

 

The other man was speaking to Lenore. Taunting her. Threatening her. Calling her “my dear” when she wasn’t his dear  _ anything. _

 

The words “they’re dead and you killed them” echoed in his head. Seeing this counterpart to himself with the same face, the same voice,  _ the same clothes _ ...made him realize exactly why Lenore had been so upset upon seeing him that first time.

 

This was a fact that only fueled his anger and hatred for this other man.

 

Before he could think any more about the subject, HG pulled himself up from the ground and launched himself at the other man who was currently unsuspecting...and thankfully, corporeal due to needing to hold the machine. 

 

If he could just grab the machine before he used it on Lenore. 

Lenore would be okay. She could use the time machine to get back to Annabel and Edgar. 

 

But this other version of himself...he needed to be stopped.

 

HG tackled the other version of himself to the ground as the machine whirred to life in his hands. The shock of the fall and the change of direction caused the machine to instead turn on the two men.

 

Both screamed as the power hit them.

HG pushed the machine into the other man and willed himself to hold on. 

He had to hold on. He had to save Lenore and keep this other man from ever hurting her again.

 

He had to keep holding on until the other man was stopped.

Even if that meant he was erased from existence with him.

 

Through the electricity sparking around them he saw Lenore. He saw her open her eyes. 

He met her eyes and saw her fear. He saw her lips move and saw her scream.

 

And then with a final burst of energy the machine exploded and all went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....please don't hate us :)


	20. Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Goodbye, my almost lover  
> Goodbye, my hopeless dream  
> I'm trying not to think about you  
> Can't you just let me be?  
> So long, my luckless romance  
> My back is turned on you  
> Should've known you'd bring me heartache  
> Almost lovers always do"
> 
> -Almost Lover, A Fine Frenzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the massive delay between updates! It's been a very busy month for both of us and we've finally found time to get back to work on this. We're nearing the end...just a few chapters left!!

The smoke cleared in the room and Lenore found herself looking at one body on the ground.

 

(Could ghosts even have bodies? She wasn’t sure, but she knew what she was looking at and it was definitely a body.)

 

The body stirred and Lenore felt fear course through her.

 

What if it wasn’t her HG who had survived. What if it was...him? The other one. The evil one who didn’t even deserve to share a name with her beloved inventor.

 

And then he opened his eyes and Lenore saw and she knew.

 

She knew.

 

And she burst into tears immediately. HG pulled her into an embrace and she didn’t even care that this was ruining her hair and makeup. 

 

The other man was gone. Against all odds, they had made it.

 

* * *

After a rather tearful (and rather joyous) reunion, Lenore and HG realized that now while they were together, they were now both...stuck.

 

(Lenore told him at least it wasn’t as bad this time because now she knew there was a way back since he’d shown up here. He told her sadly that he wasn’t sure what had caused him to end up here and that he hadn’t been paying attention when trying different things and that he’d really just flipped random switches and levers and somehow it had worked.)

(He also told her that if it hadn’t been for Annabel pushing him to keep trying he wouldn’t be here either.)

(Of course Annabel has to do everything. Lenore made a mental note to buy her bestie...something. She deserved a lot of thanks for putting up with everything. And for handling Edgar.)

 

HG had been tinkering with the machine again, but it seemed that it had died when it arrived in this world. It was as if there had never been any power to the machine in the first place. He tried everything, including kicking the machine when he thought Lenore wasn’t watching.

 

(As if he could get something past her. Her powers of observation were...terrifying.)

(That had been a few days ago and she still hadn’t let him live it down. “Maybe you could try kicking it again, that worked so well last time.”)

(He’d be offended if it wasn’t for her laughter every time she asked it. Seeing her laugh again was enough.)

 

It seemed that there was no way to reproduce the method that brought him here. Even entering the exact same calculations he’d entered when the machine had magically transported itself to the other realm didn’t seem to work. The machine would light up, they’d get their hopes up...and then be sent straight back to the same dusty attic in the long-abandoned house they’d been stuck in.

 

Whenever HG asked Lenore how she’d gotten over in the first place she would only shrug her shoulders and tell him she was “super emo at the time and didn’t really pay attention to what she’d done.” 

 

This went on for what seemed like weeks. Or at least what seemed like weeks to a man who wasn’t used to being stuck in one place. 

Lenore liked to point out to him that it had only been a few days but that it probably seemed like more because he insisted on not sleeping until he found a way to get them back.

 

(“Ghosts don’t need to sleep, Lenore. It’s only a biological need for the living to do so and seeing as we no longer are alive we no longer require sleep. Those hours are hours lost working.”)

(HG did not seem to understand other reasons for sleeping. Lenore decided not to push the issue at the moment. That was a conversation for...later.)

 

HG was working on the machine when he heard a rustling at the door. He smiled to himself. Lenore had said something about going to make him a “proper cup of tea or whatever you British people like” and he was actually rather touched that she would go through the effort to do so even though he knew she despised tea.

 

“Just leave it on the table, Lenore. I’ll get to it in a few minutes.”

When there was no response HG turned and saw Lenore in the doorway...but without tea. 

Then he heard a teacup shatter and a gasp as a second Lenore appeared behind the first one.

 

“Hi Goggles.”

 

* * *

 

HG and...Lenore. His Lenore? Not his Lenore? His brain reeled as he tried to figure out everything that had happened in the past few minutes.

 

(Lenore...his Lenore. Well, his current Lenore...had explained everything. She told him that the other Lenore had showed up months ago and gave her one of the final pushes towards actually trusting him, but that she hadn’t stayed to see him or Annabel or Edgar and that she didn’t want them to know she’d even been there because it would have hurt more.)

(And then Lenore had whispered a hurried apology and had fled.)

 

“So…this is a bit awkward…” Lenore quirked an eyebrow at the inventor. He had to agree with her. Awkward indeed.

 

“I...ah...You see you were gone, I thought for good and then Lenore...well, the other Lenore I suppose came and I thought she was  _ you _ but she very clearly was NOT, a fact she made quite clear upon trying to kill me the first time we met…” HG noticed Lenore wince but continued his explanation. It seemed that now that he had started he was finding it difficult to stop. “So instead I tried to figure out what had happened but she didn’t trust me and it broke my heart again to see her in so much pain whenever she looked at me. To see that flash of pain cross her face and be able to do nothing to comfort her. She ran whenever I got too close for comfort. After a while Annabel figured everything out. Or perhaps she knew from the beginning. Lenore always trusted her, even if we weren’t the same people she knew from...from here.” He gestured around to the dusty attic where he had been working on the machine. “I…” he faltered, looking down at the floor as if analyzing the very number of dust specks gathered upon it.

And then he looked back up at Lenore. Not his Lenore, not anymore. 

“I suppose I grew to love her out of my love for you. You see...she...she’s a lot like you, this Lenore. But at the same time not...and...I suppose I’m sorry for…”   
  


“HG...stop.” Lenore held out a hand, a sad smile on her face. “It’s like...totally fine. I’m the one who should be apologizing anyways. This is...kind of my fault.” Seeing HG’s confused look, she continued. “So when I passed on I was able to kind of...see everything happening here still. And I saw how sad you all were and it totally broke my heart. And then I saw the other me in so much pain and anyone as fabulous as another me should never be sad, so I kind of...sent her to you.” She winced, remembering the events that had followed. “I sort of didn’t think that through and I’m really sorry about all of that. I should have tried to get to her sooner than I did...but Guy didn’t want me to get involved because he thought it would be ‘meddling’ or something like that…” She trailed off with a somewhat-wistful look, then shook her head. “Annnyways. I saw things were going so well and then she got pulled back here and you were so desperate and so worried so I kind of….convinced Guy to help me send you here to rescue her. I didn’t plan the psycho-evil-crazy version of you trying to kill you both though.” She winced again.

 

HG stood, speechless. The explanation was a lot to take in, even for someone like him.

(Plus it was still a lot to take in that Lenore was even  _ here _ . She shouldn’t be.)

(But then again, neither should his Lenore. And he should have never been able to make it to another dimension.)

(In fact none of this should have been possible.)

(It was something he wished fervently to have more time to study...there it was again. The man with the time machine without enough time.)

 

“Sooooo…” Lenore continued awkwardly after HG had sat in silence for a few moments. “We have to get you and your Lenore back home. I can’t abandon Annabel with Edgar forever. I know they love each other and stuff but he gets  _ way  _ too emo for her to deal with all the time and no one deserves that. So...Guy said he’ll help again and we can get you both back home.”

 

“You...you want to help? After I...moved on? Fell in love with another person who’s so much like you? But isn’t you? Are….are you happy, Lenore?” He tried to ignore how it pained him (just a little bit) not to call her his dear.

(She wasn’t his dear. Not anymore. Her heart belonged to another. Perhaps it always had.)

 

Lenore smiled sadly. “I’m very happy, HG. And I promise, you weren’t like...a replacement for Guy or anything like that. He was dead. Gone. I never thought I’d see him again after he didn’t come back. But love doesn’t...go away exactly. I’ll always love you, HG. But Guy...Guy is my everything and it’s just...different. It feels right. And you deserve that too.”

 

Suddenly Lenore leaned forward and pulled HG into a hug. He hadn’t been expecting it, but at the same time it felt...almost warm and comforting. But very much the hug of an old friend. An old love that had passed on forever.

 

Lenore pulled back from him and tried to stop the tears from pricking her eyes. She was  _ not _ messing up her makeup again today. 

 

“You leave the getting back part to me and Guy. We’ll send you home. I want you to be happy, HG. So happy. And you will be.” She pushed him towards the door. “Go get her, Goggles. She needs you and you need her. It’s totes perfect.” She pushed him through the door and away from her for the last time.

 

When HG turned around to look at her to protest, she was gone.

 

Lenore, now unable to be seen by those in the world turned to Guy, who held her hand as the tears that had been unshed fell. She smiled at him through the tears and let his hand go. 

 

“Okay. Let’s do this. Let’s send them home.”

 

“Of course, my dear.”

 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading :)


	21. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ll never stop trying  
> I’ll never stop watching as you leave  
> I’ll never stop losing my breath  
> Every time I see you looking back at me  
> I’ll never stop holding your hand  
> I’ll never stop opening your door  
> I’ll never stop choosing you babe  
> I’ll never get used to you"  
> -Never Stop, Safety Suit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The end at long last!

Lenore had fled. Well, to say fled, she really meant back to the attic.

 

Her attic. Her one safe place where she could always go to be alone.

 

And this time she really was alone. 

There was no Annabel to come rescue her.

No Edgar to awkwardly stand at the bottom of the stairs and tell her that dinner was ready and that he had  _ maybe _ almost burnt down the entire house and could she PLEASE come help so Annabel didn’t find out what he’d done.

And no HG to…

 

No. She couldn’t think about that right now.

 

The other...her. The other Lenore had somehow ended up here too. And of course, Lenore knew deep down that her happiness had been too good to last. HG would….well, he loved  _ her _ of course. She heard the words of the other him echoing through her head. 

She was only a replacement.

She wasn’t good enough for him. Or for Annabel. Or Edgar. They deserved their friend...their real friend.

 

So she’d fled to the attic but the attic wasn’t her empty sanctuary anymore. Now the time machine took up residence there. She supposed it made sense...of course it would end up in the same place it had occupied in the other world.

And like she’d done countless times in the other world, she found herself on the floor next to it curled up and crying.

Except now she had no one to comfort her. Here, all her friends were dead. 

They’re dead. And he’d killed them. And then she’d killed him...and then he’d come back and now he was gone again. For good this time.

 

She buried her face in her lap and didn’t hear the door to the attic open or the figure who came up the steps. It wasn’t until the figure spoke that she realized she was no longer alone.

 

“L-Lenore…”

 

* * *

HG had run after Lenore. His Lenore. He knew she’d be going up to the attic, of course. Some things would never change. The attic had always been hers...and then slowly, it had become theirs. Together.

 

He heard the sniffling the moment he opened the door to the attic.

 

When he got to the top of the stairs he saw her curled on the floor. She was crying again. He cursed himself for, yet again, being the cause of her pain.

 

“L-Lenore…” 

She looked up at him and he looked at her tear-stained face and wished he could have done something...anything to prevent this.

It seemed that he had made things worse. Again. He’d once vowed never to make Lenore cry again. Realizing that he’d failed hurt him more than he cared to admit.

 

“Did you come to say goodbye?”

 

HG flinched at her tone. It was...sharp. Hurt.

“Goodbye?”

 

“Yeah. You know. Because you got your girl back or whatever but you’re too prim and proper for your own good so you came to say goodbye and make this entire thing that much worse and leave me stuck here by myself forever.” Lenore was shouting and realized she didn’t even care at this point. 

Why should she care?

No one else ever seemed to care about her. 

They only cared until it was inconvenient for them.

Or they were dead.

 

HG realized too late what had happened. Of course Lenore would think he was leaving her...she’d seen the other Lenore come back. It was, of course, natural for her to think he’d leave with her. His first not-quite-love. 

But not his love. Not...not his dear Lenore.

 

“Everyone I loved here is  _ dead _ and I’m alone. And you...you made me think I could be happy again and then she came back and I know you’ll choose her...you have to choose her. She’s your...your…” Lenore dissolved back into tears

 

“Oh my  _ dear _ Lenore…” HG knelt down next to her on the floor, taking her hands in his. “There was never any choice. I choose you.”

 

This time when the tears came they were tears of relief.

 

* * *

 

HG and Lenore didn’t know how long they’d been sitting on the floor together. Her tears had subsided some time ago and now they just...sat. Neither wanted to get up and break the moment, and neither was ready to be away from the other, even if just for a moment.

Lenore determined that they deserved it after everything they’d been through anyways.

 

(Seriously, what other couple had been torn apart so many times and still ended up together? Maybe someone from one of those romance novels Edgar always made fun of her for. But this wasn’t a novel. This was real life...or real death. Whatever.)

 

Eventually HG pulled them both up. Living in their small bubble was fine short term...but they needed to get back to their world. He wasn’t sure how long Lenore...well, the other Lenore...would be able to stay around to help them get back.

(HG had explained everything that had happened, of course. How the other Lenore was going to help them get back along with Guy...but that it would still take a fair bit of trial and error and that he wasn’t sure how long it would take or even  _ if  _ it was possible.)

 

(He hoped it was.)

 

Lenore saw the glint in her inventor’s eyes. She knew the gears in his brain were turning, trying to figure out exactly how they were going to get back. 

 

“Come my dear. We have work to do if we are to get back home.” 

 

Home. 

Lenore smiled. At some point in the past few months the other world had become her home. She was excited to return to it with her inventor at her side. She was excited to see Annabel again...and even excited to see Edgar again (although if you asked her she would deny it).

(Really she just needed to make sure he hadn’t turned the place into a ravenry.)

(Seriously. No ravens better be anywhere close to her attic.)

 

HG tugged her towards the time machine where he immediately began tinkering with it as if nothing had changed. As if they hadn’t been thrown into the other dimension where an evil version of him exists. Existed.

He was gone. He couldn’t hurt them or her friends ever again.

 

“So like...did the other...me...tell you what to do to get back?”

 

“Not in so many words. Just that she and Guy would send us back...I’m just not sure how…”

His words were cut off by the machine suddenly starting of its own accord.

 

“Well that explains that, then.” Lenore smirked at the shocked expression on the inventor’s face.

 

“But...how. There’s no power to the…” HG sputtered, frantically checking all of the instruments to see if they had also moved. 

 

“She said she’d send us home, right?” When HG nodded, Lenore continued. “Well...then we’re going home.” Lenore reached out and squeezed his hand, reassuring him that things were going to be okay. 

They were going home.

And they were going together.

 

They had finally made it.

 

* * *

 

Annabel had taken it upon herself to check the attic a few times each day. It had been days...well, weeks...since HG had disappeared after Lenore. 

And Annabel refused to give up hope, even if she was the last person still left hoping.

 

Edgar had given up after a week. He, of course, still supported Annabel’s hope and nodded along to her explanations for why she still hoped her friends would return. But Annabel knew it was hard on him, just as it was on her. Yes, Lenore was her best friend...but Lenore had been Edgar’s  _ only  _ friend for a long time as well.

 

Annabel held onto her hope for Edgar just as much as she was holding onto it for herself.

 

Whenever she came up to the attic she had to shake away thoughts and memories of being up here in a different time...a different life it almost seemed. Before the dinner party, before Eddie and...everything. Before Lenore had left and a new-but-still-the-same Lenore had come back. 

The ring of dust that had once marked where HG’s machine had stood had slowly disappeared and now the entire floor lay covered in a thin layer of dust. Cobwebs still hung from the ceiling and Annabel forced herself to not think of the spiders and how undeniably  _ creepy _ they were each time she came to check on the attic.

 

(Plus a few minutes with them wouldn’t hurt her. Or so she convinced herself.) 

(One had nearly landed on her face at one point and she had run screaming from the attic only for Edgar to assume the worst had happened and an hour long session of reminding him that she was already dead and nothing could  _ actually _ hurt her.)

(They both conveniently ignored the part where apparently ghosts could still disappear for good from this world.)

 

On this day as she made her way up to the attic, Annabel wondered if all these trips up the stairs were in vain. 

How much longer could she keep checking and have her hopes dashed again and again?

(She could hear Lenore’s response in her head. “Are you serious, Annababe? You have to like...move on with your life. Make the place less emo-depressive since that’s all Edgar knows how to do. You have to stop him from that and I swear if you let him turn half the house into a ravenry again for his stupid aesthetic reasons I  _ will  _ find a way to come back, so help me.”)

 

But she couldn’t give up. Not just yet.

 

She came to the end of the stairs and looked around the dusty and dreary attic. Small bits of light came through the dust-covered windows, shining an almost eerie shadow on the wall that was both comforting and disturbing.

She missed her best friend.

Maybe her internal monologue Lenore was right. Maybe it was time to move on.

Annabel looked at the empty space that once held a time machine for just a moment longer. It was one thing to decide to give up and move on. It was another thing entirely to actually do it.

 

And then there was a faint whistling, as if a window had been left open just a crack. 

But there were no open windows. The windows in the attic had been stuck shut for years.

 

And then without warning or prompting, the time machine appeared back in the middle of the attic.

If Annabel had still been alive, it would have scared her half to death.

She cried out Edgar’s name, urging him to come quickly.

 

And then just as Edgar rushed up the stairs asking her what was wrong and if she was okay, two figures stepped out of the machine.

 

There was a rush of tears and hugs as Annabel threw herself at Lenore.

Her best friend was safe.

 

They were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO MUCH for all of your support throughout this entire process. The past few months have been a bit busy for both of us (thus the lack of updates) but we could not have made it here without all of your support and love and comments. We do have a planned epilogue for the story, so stay tuned for that!
> 
> Thank you all again. Your support means the world to us.


	22. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And all along I believed, I would find you  
> Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years  
> I'll love you for a thousand more  
> One step closer  
> One step closer  
> I have died everyday, waiting for you  
> Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years  
> I'll love you for a thousand more"  
> -A Thousand Years, Christina Perri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final happily-ever-after.

Life slowly returned to normal in the house after Lenore and HG’s triumphant return.

Well. As normal as life with 3 ghosts and a brooding author who hated everyone (except Annabel Lee) could be.

 

(Lenore knew Edgar was secretly happy that she’d made it back. The closest either of them had gotten to admitting it was when Lenore found herself hugging Edgar in the attic after Annabel had gone to hug HG.)

(When they realized they were touching they’d immediately sprung apart. Both had sworn they’d never speak of it again.)

(Annabel and HG, of course, brought it up at every moment they could.)

 

There were still days when Lenore would get a distant look on her face and HG knew she had remembered something from the other world. Some days it would be a word or a phrase, other days it would simply happen with no cause at all. HG felt he had gotten pretty good at learning how to help her.

And when he couldn’t, he could just find Annabel.

(The first time it had happened HG had been in such a panic that Annabel had become convinced that they were back to square one and HG had made everything worse.)

(Annabel soon learned that sometimes the thing that pulled Lenore out of her thoughts was her and not HG. As wonderful as he was, sometimes a best friend was the best cure.)

 

Lenore had gone back to cooking dinners for the household. After all, someone had to make sure Edgar actually ate a balanced meal from time to time. And no matter how many times he had insisted that he’d eaten, Lenore always reminded him that “tea is not a meal. What is it with you and HG and thinking that you can survive on liquids?”

(Edgar would frequently remind Lenore that HG was a ghost and did not require food.)

(This also resulted in Lenore dumping whatever food she had in her hands at the time on his head.)

(Annabel would be angry at cleaning up the mess if she wasn’t so relieved that life had gone back to normal between the two friends.)

 

HG continued his experiments and travelling using the machine. Lenore hardly dared to step near the machine when it was turned on. She was too scared she’d be ripped away again. It didn’t matter how many times HG explained the science behind it and how what had happened last time wasn’t going to happen again...Lenore swore she’d never step foot in the machine again. She instead spent time with Annabel when HG went off on his expeditions. 

And he always returned to her, and that was what was most important.

(HG always made sure to bring something back for his dear Lenore, even if it was something as small as a flower he’d seen that reminded him of her.)

(Lenore had accumulated a small collection in her corner of the attic of dried flowers and small trinkets. Edgar had made fun of her for it all of one time before he learned that topic was off limits.)

 

A few months after everything had finally settled Lenore found herself at dinner with her group of friends and found herself thinking on all that had happened.   
The other universe and killing that universe’s HG.    
Frantically using the time machine hoping to change her fate.   
Ending up here. In this world that was so much like hers but so different in ways she could have never imagined.   
Namely one way. One person.

 

“Lenore?” HG pulled her out of her thoughts. She realized he must have been saying her name a few times based on the worried look on his face. 

 

Lenore smiled. Yes. This world might be different, and it might not be “her” world. But it was something better.

 

It was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! That's the end! Thank you so much to everyone who stuck by this while we figured out what we wanted to do. We hope we made it all worth your while and that you've stopped hating us for the angst fest. We have loved reading your comments and reactions. Thank you for making this journey so much fun for us! It's still so weird to us that something that started out as an all-caps tumblr freak out turned into this fic. We've loved writing it and again...thanks :)
> 
> For those who have asked, the playlist we have pulled songs from for this fic can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/user/1258842150/playlist/4RBp9ZfA7U2e0ZreDA7isL
> 
> Not all the songs on the list ended up used, but the songs definitely provided a lot of inspiration!


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